I have to agree with Josh Marshall: John Judis’s article in the American Prospect is the best analysis I’ve seen for why the Bush administration seeks overthrow of Saddam Hussein. As I have written before, pure economic logic does not explain why the U.S. would embark on a risky and costly war, but the geo-political stability of the Mideast is crucial for the economy. Yet the administration acts as if such realpolitic reason is not the issue, that either (depending on the week) the weapons threat or Iraq’s domestic tyranny is what’s driving the war mobilization. As Judis notes,
the administration generally has avoided any statements of purpose that explicitly included either oil or Israel. To do so, administration officials feared, would be to invite misunderstanding and opposition. Not to do so has equally invited misunderstanding.
That said, the role of think tanks and publications like The Weekly Standard and The National Review seem to have been disproportionately influential in formulating, post facto, a moral crusade as justification for the real politic. Not that their critiques of the dove-left should not be taken seriously - when would the left support intervention against tyrrany or arms-proliferation? how does avoiding war, noble in itself, weaken any kind of game-theory strategy toward potential enemies? - but i think the argument can be well-made that the flaws with either aspect of Iraq invasion (stopping weapons proliferation or encouraging democracy) are fatal ones. Hopefully I can elaborate more as I begin to articulate my thoughts for myself.
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