Abstract

'Sorry' Seems to Be the Hardest Word

The author speculates on why several influential liberal commentators, especially Thomas Friedman, continue to support the war in Iraq. OK, Saddam's in jail and Iraq is the fifty-first (and best-funded) state. Are we better off than we were a year ago? "Slate"'s Jacob Weisberg asked a prominent group of "liberal hawks" to reassess their support for the war in light of what we now know. Of the group of eight, Kenneth Pollack, George Packer and Fred Kaplan have all come to regret their previous arguments to various degrees. The "I'm Still a Hawk" club includes Thomas Friedman, Paul Berman, Christopher Hitchens and Fareed Zakaria. We are left, then, with Tom Friedman, America's most influential foreign affairs interlocutor, as the sole actual liberal in this group still defending his original cost-benefit analysis. He continues to concede the best of intentions to Bush& Co. vis-à-vis their alleged commitment to making Iraq a beacon of democracy, human rights and pluralism for the Arab world in order to destroy the "terrorism bubble" that has arisen in these sick societies. In light of Bush & Co.'s incompetent prewar planning, coupled with its arrogant unilateralist postwar mindset, it is awfully tempting for the disillusioned liberal hawks to contend that it did not give them the war they had been promised. To place one's trust in the honesty and good will of Bush & Co. is a far more grievous error than liberals made in 1964, because we have been to this movie before.