George Bush was not the only one in the US to urge intervention in Iraq, but, in retrospect, were the "liberal hawks" just dupes, asks Tom Wright?
As we approach the first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq it is easy to forget that neo-conservatives were not the only ones to support the decision to go to war.
A number of liberals and committed multilateralists also backed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein despite a series of profound disagreements with the Bush administration's foreign policy, particularly its unilateralist tendencies.
The most prominent members of this "liberal hawk" camp include both Bill and Hillary Clinton, former Clinton administration official Kenneth Pollack, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, possibly Tony Blair, and a range of other high- profile politicians and commentators.
As someone who wrote in these pages in favour of this "liberal hawk" position, it is useful to ask whether, given what we now know, the war was worth it. Indeed, one could suggest that we have an obligation to revisit the case. Were we duped? Would we take the same position if we had to do it all over again?
On the face of it, the case for war is weaker than we made it out to be. Most obviously, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have not been found and are likely not to exist. One can point out the obvious: intelligence is murky, there is never certainty, there is a cost to inaction, the estimates of Iraqi WMD were shared by every international intelligence agency for the past 10 years, and it now appears that Saddam intentionally misled us into believing he had WMD to cow internal dissent to his regime.
Nevertheless, there is no escaping the fact that this is a serious failing and one that undermines American credibility. Given that this is gradually being accepted by all sides, one can hope that opponents of the war will join its supporters in arguing for increased resources and political support for American and European intelligence agencies to prevent a recurrence.
There were two other mistakes, both of which were more avoidable, that may in the long run prove to be more damaging than the WMD fiasco.
First, the run-up to the invasion undermined Western alliances and damaged America's standing in the world. And secondly, the planning for the aftermath was poor and inadequate to the point that a successful reconstruction of Iraq is now in some doubt. Both were a product of the neo-conservatives' arrogance and failure to construct a multilateral approach capable of bringing NATO aboard.
Yet, these failings can be remedied by smart diplomacy and a commitment to rebuild Iraq. The question, therefore, remains whether the war itself was right or wrong.
Before the war there were two basic policy choices facing the international community. We could continue to use containment and deterrence to effectively "keep Saddam in a box". Alternatively, we could intervene to change the regime. Both had costs. There were no perfect solutions.
Kenneth Pollack, author of Threatening Storm: The Case for War on Iraq, probably had it right when he argued in a recent dialogue in Slate magazine (slate.msn.com/id/2093620) that in hindsight, "when you weigh all the pros and cons, deterrence and invasion might have been roughly equal but . . . a key difference between them was if you opted for invasion, you were removing a real evil from the world and creating the possibility that we could turn Iraq into a real positive".
This is the first reason why the invasion was the right thing to do. According to one UNICEF study, 30,000 Iraqi civilians a year were dying under the containment policy, largely because of the way that Saddam was manipulating the sanctions regime.
We had an obligation to match our opposition to Saddam with the means to remove him, particularly when one reflects upon the ease with which Iraq was liberated. It was also a war won with astonishingly little geopolitical blowback. In other words, the invasion of Iraq, unlike North Korea, was a doable proposition.
By contrast, every plan to avoid war, save for Bush's call for Saddam and his two sons to leave the country, allowed for Saddam, a particularly brutal and vile dictator, to remain in power indefinitely, presumably to be eventually replaced by the unfathomably sadistic Uday or Qusay. This is hard to square with concern for the people of Iraq.
The second reason why the invasion was the right thing to do is what Thomas Friedman of the New York Times calls the "real reason for this war". This, according to Friedman, was "to burst . . . the terrorism bubble which had built up in the 1990s".
During this bubble it was acceptable to violate binding UN resolutions, finance Palestinian suicide bombings, and voice support for the 9/11 attacks. Saddam did all of these things but was never held to account.
Last year Saddam responded to yet another last chance (UN security council resolution 1441) by refusing to comply. This presented an ideal opportunity to address this credibility gap and demonstrate Western resolve. The Iraq war, Friedman observes, ensured that "everyone in the neighbourhood got the message: henceforth you will be held accountable". Already there are signs that others, most obviously Syria and Libya, are moderating their behaviour to accommodate the new reality. If weakness is provocative, strength is sobering.
The danger posed by WMD, terrorism, and rogue states is not a figment of the neo-conservative imagination. These threats cannot be met with endless talk and a refusal to use force. But, neither can they be tackled unilaterally and on the cheap. Both the doves and neo-conservatives are wrong.
Almost a year after the war began, it remains unfinished. The European Union now has an opportunity to help by improving its military capabilities and making a real commitment to help the US succeed in post-war Iraq.
Make no mistake, this will be expensive and hard but it will strengthen American multilateralism and is certainly in Europe's interest and the interest of the Iraqi people.
As Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek magazine remarked: "The eggs are broken. Now we need to make a decent omelette."
Tom Wright is working on a PhD in international relations at Georgetown University in Washington DC