So thinks George Will, or at least that’s my humble distillation of the piece he wrote which is hitting many outlets today. Will has been at the least dubious about the Iraq war from the start (and especially about its ambitions beyond merely deposing Saddam) and has only become more pessimistic about the ultimate outcome of the conflict. Still, this seems to be by far his most overt attack on “neoconservatives,” prompted by Bill Kristol’s call in the pages of The Weekly Standard for the U.S. to use the opportunity of Israel’s war on Hezbollah to take on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Undoubtedly this will be jumped on by liberal opponents of the Iraq war to trumpet as some kind of big break-down on the right, but that’s irrelevant. Will deserves respect and his piece deserves an airing. I don’t agree with his view of the “deteriorating wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, ultimately, because I don’t share his pessmism. He seems to give no weight to the fact of free elections having been held and participated in heavily by populaces completely unaccustomed to them, and constitutions being adopted — all of this happening, in Iraq’s case, within three years. The wars have been difficult and costly for those who have sacrificed, but, in historical terms, the toppling of two violent regimes and the freeing of 50 million people has never been achieved at a price so low. Ultimately, also, just like liberal critics of the war, Will is simply focusing on the difficulties of the current strategy against Jihadism, without proposing an alternative. It is not enough to say, “This is painful, we can’t do it anymore,” if the alternative is inaction in the face of the growing global movement of violent Islamic radicals who have real ambitions to impose their kind of religious fascism on others — and who see the U.S. as a beast that must be defeated.

In the absence of the seed of democracy being planted — admittedly at a high price for America — in the Middle East, what would that region look like five years from now, and ten years from now, and twenty years from now? George Will seems to propose nothing but more of the “stabililty” of the past 60 years which has led to this point. Are we at war or not? If we are at war at the very least with al-Qaeda, and if al-Qaeda is fighting in both Afghanistan and in Iraq, then where should our troops be, exactly? It is generally considered apropos in wars to take on the enemy where he is and to deny him the prizes he wishes to possess. There is no question that from Osama Bin Laden on down, al-Qaeda considers it vital to triumph in Iraq and Afghanistan. Isn’t that the ultimate justification for defeating al-Qaeda there?

Kristol’s call for an opportunistic attack now by the U.S. on Iran is over-the-top, although, if an attack by the U.S. on their nuclear facilities is necessary in the end, it may well be wished that it had been done by surprise at an earlier stage. Still, Kristol is fighting his corner, as is Will, and I think neither of them are krazy.

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