Tom paints with an unnecessarily wide brush, but this last sentence is spot-on:

Had Democrats been running this war with the incompetence of Donald Rumsfeld & Friends, conservatives would have demanded their heads a year ago - and gotten them.

Let's be honest here: this administration's record doesn't pass the Clinton test. By that I mean that if this were the Clinton (or Gore) administration rather than the Bush administration, there is no way imaginable under the sun that the Republican-controlled Congress wouldn't have already had impeachment proceedings under way. I suspect that a vast amount of this newfound Republican love of nation-building and interventionist foreign policy has more to do with falling in line behind the Party than with any actual change in principles.

Utter nonsense.

THe one true light coming off this is the concept that liberalism is driven the guilt complex.

Tom Friedman: "Conservatives have failed their own test of patriotism."

Hey, looks like Tom is trying to fit in with today modern Democrat Party...

Wesley Clark on Bush's aircraft carrier landing: "I don't think it's patriotic."

Wesley Clark on the Iraq war: "I don't think it was a patriotic war."

Michael Moore on Republicans: "They are not patriots. They are hate-triots."

Ted Kennedy on Republicans: "false patriots."

Howard Dean on Republicans: fly "under a banner of false patriotism."

Teresa Heinz Kerry on Dick Cheney: "unpatriotic."

Sen. Bob Graham on Bush's Iraq policy: "anti-patriotic at the core."

New York Rep. Nita Lowey on Republicans who cut taxes: "unpatriotic." for cutting taxes.

Howard Dean on John Ashcroft "not a patriot."

John Kerry on Bush's "friends" in the corporate world who outsource jobs: "unpatriotic" and "Benedict Arnold CEOs."

And Democrats complain that Republicans are calling them unpatriotic?

As an aside re:

Then they participated in a shameful effort to refocus the country's attention on what John Kerry did on the rivers of Vietnam 30 years ago

If Bush had been the Vietnam war veteran and the Democrats had tried to smear his record, we'd by now be discussing a constitutional amendment to make any questioning of a veteran's war record illegal.

"but you can't say that principled conservatives didn't make these points in the first place"

Newt Gingrich and William Kristol are principled conservatives? That's news to me!

Considering Kristol is one of the foremost neocons and therefore support big government, less civil liberties, huge tax cuts with deficit spending, squashing environmental reforms, and Wilsonian nation-building pipedreams of reforming the world in our image...I'd say he's quite the principled liberal!

Neocons are living a fantasy when they believe they are anywhere but to the left of Kucinich. They're a disgrace to Teddy Roosevelt, Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan.

"You can say that those criticisms fell on deaf ears -- but you can't say that principled conservatives didn't make these points in the first place."

But you also can't say that a few "principled conservatives" provide an adequate response to Friedman's point. The problem isn't with the principled conservatives, it's with all conservatives, and by and large the Bush administration has faced little criticism from their side of the aisle (and VERY little criticism from Republican elected officials). If people like Garner, Bremer, and Tenet criticize the administration NOW, or if unelected conservatives criticize (sometimes while still mocking liberal opposition), it hardly makes up for the Greek chorus of Republicans inside the beltway.

Newt Gingrich, George Will, Max Boot, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and Charles Grassley -- were criticizing Bush over these mistakes. You can say that those criticisms fell on deaf ears -- but you can't say that principled conservatives didn't make these points in the first place.

Of course, only George Will and Charles Grassley are principled out of that group...

> you can't say that principled conservatives
> didn't make these points in the first place

...but if they are still supporting Bush (and of course they all are), then they have not held him responsible for genuinely attempting to win the peace.

In this insignificant speck known as blogdom, one blogger's posts at command-post.org during the invasion were occasionally about things we did wrong. Can you guess the name of that blogger?

Unfortunately, complaining about things like the (possible) looting of the museum or the burning of the national library was met with a round of "there's a war on!" from other, more powerful bloggers, many of whom are now voting for four more years of the same.

Friedman has become one of you. None of us liberals claim him! ;)

Good points on the "principled conservatives" theme. Another "unprincipled conservative" has weighed in:

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, I don't think God's opposed to the war, necessarily, but it was a danger sign. I felt very uneasy about it from the very get-go. Whenever I heard about it, I knew it was going to be trouble. I warned the president. I only met with him once. I said, You better prepare the American people for some serious casualties. And he said, Oh, no, our troops are, you know, so well protected, we don't have to worry about that.

But the larger point I want to address is that TF is not in the best position to be criticizing others. Below is a response I wrote to a Friedman editorial in August, 2003, over 14 months ago. Of course, then he took his leave of absence. Has he now returned, reborn as a shrill but proud member of the reality based community?

BEGIN Thomas Friedman’s August 4 (2003)editorial piece, “The War Over the War,” is abject apologia for President Bush’s and Prime Minister Blair’s tactics in “selling” the Iraq war to their respective publics and legislatures.

Mr. Friedman acknowledges that these tactics included “hyp(ing) the direct threat from Iraq and highlight(ing) flimsy intelligence…suggesting Saddam retained hidden stocks of WMDs,…which he could deploy at any minute.” He fails to mention the hyped relationship between Saddam and al Qaida and the hype in the President’s State of the Union Address around the specific issue of nuclear development in Iraq. Not to mention the hype about “coalition forces” in the face of broad international opposition to the war.

In addition to misleading the American public, we now know that the Bush administration has distorted the entire process of gathering and analyzing intelligence by making it known to intelligence agencies that the executive branch solicits only information that supports its pre-determined policy. “Government intelligence” is more an oxymoron than ever. With credible threats of nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea (and existing capability in India and Pakistan), how do we trust a politicized CIA and NSA?

Mr. Friedman asserts that the Iraq war was justified because Saddam “aspired to acquire weapons of mass destruction,” and “to send a message to all the neighboring regimes that Western governments were not going to just sit back and let them incubate suicide bombers and religious totalitarians…” How many world leaders “aspire to acquire…?” Does he propose that we overthrow all of them? What message are we sending to the Saudi ruling class, which has demonstrable connections with al Qaida, by invading Iraq, which apparently had none?

Mr. Friedman’s most pernicious notion is that “only future historians will be able to sort out this war’s ultimate validity.” He is saying that we should suspend judgement of the means used to persuade citizens and legislatures to support a pre-emptive war, because the ends may ultimately justify the means. But as citizens and participants in history, we cannot await the final judgement of history (which never arrives). We must make decisions now based on what we believe about the world and our role in it. History is not an infallible test of what is “right” in the affairs of nations.

Thomas Friedman is a highly regarded analyst of the conflict between Israel and the Mid-East Arab nations, especially the PLO. Rightly so. He believes that “the good reason(s) for this war…(are)…to unleash a process of reform in the Arab-Muslim region that will help it embrace modernity and make it less angry and more at ease with the world.” Such a deep and lasting change would almost certainly facilitate peace and security in the region. But many questions remain about whether prosecuting war with Iraq was an effective means of achieving this end, whether the cost in our international credibility will seriously damage the effective rebuilding of Iraq, and whether our efforts to reconstruct Iraq as a democratic, capitalist Arab state are ultimately Quixotic (and perhaps damaging to the people of Iraq).

More fundamentally, whatever happened to the consent of the governed? How can we, as citizens and legislators, make informed decisions if our own government feeds us “sexed-up” information and analysis? We’ve been here before. Government lies and deliberate manipulation of information were used to justify our presence and actions in Vietnam. It did not end well.

Historians will never reach final judgement about specific events as long as there are Ph.D. dissertations to be written. But what we know about the past does sometimes congeal into general principles and patterns. Government that deceives its citizens is not compatible with participatory democracy. Entrenched opposition to occupation, concealed by sympathetic indigenous individuals and institutions, can bedevil vastly superior military forces. External attempts to transform the culture of foreign nations engender grudges and hatreds that can endure for generations, sometimes centuries. The arrogance of empire is self-limiting.

The “War Over the War” is not about whether Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Hadley, Rice et al, ad naseum will ultimately be successful in transforming Mid-Eastern governments to more open, progressive, democratic practices. It is about whether we want our own government transformed into an instrument of willful ignorance, arrogance and deception of its own citizens. END

The letter was not published, maybe it was too long. But if I could do character assassination in sound bites, I'd be Karl Rove. OK, maybe I tend to ramble a bit.

The point here is: Welcome to the Reality Based Community, Tom. But be careful with those stones; you're living in a glass house located in a dream world.

From Catsy

"Let's be honest here: this administration's record doesn't pass the Clinton test. By that I mean that if this were the Clinton (or Gore) administration rather than the Bush administration, there is no way imaginable under the sun that the Republican-controlled Congress wouldn't have already had impeachment proceedings under way."

Let's be honest here Catsy, If this were the Clinton (or Gore) administration Saddam would still be collecting billions under the massively corrupt Oil for Palace program and the Iraqi people would still be in their hopeless downard spiral. As we learned throughout history and as Clinton ably displayed in both North Korea and at Camp David II, appeasement has its limits.

Conservatives are well aware many errors were made in Iraq but then what is your model for comparison? Don't confuse arm chair quarterbacking with brilliant analysis. We're all Einsteins with hindsight. No one can say that more troops would have resulted in fewer casualties. It seems likely more troops we have provided more targets. We'd need more, bigger and longer supply lines and more convoys to target with roadside bombs. To think a division stations across boarders as long as Iraq's would stop determined fanatics from infiltrating Iraq is silly.

But as a conservative the most baffling thing in this article and all of the responses is why Kerry? He's got to have the least distinguished career of any 3 term Senator in history. He has no executive or administrative experience and his votes against Reagan, Desert Storm and the $87B strongly suggest verypoor decision making skills regarding the 1st two and the total lack of a political spine regarding the 3rd.

This guy promises to be worse than Jimmy Carter.

Dan is saying he is voting for John Kerry. He's not voting for John Kerry. He is voting against GWB. Fair enough. You do that knowing the guy running in this campaign is very different than the same guy who served in the Senate and you have no idea which will show up as President. There is absolutely nothing to show he has any talent for decision making or leadership. quite the opposite.

The problem, however, is that when you look at the record of the folks listed above, the handful of mildly chastising articles they wrote are lost amid a vast sea of attacks on Bush's opponents and defenses of him on the "big issues". In other words, it was token criticism, not genuine criticism designed to sting and thus prompt change.

"Dan is saying he is voting for John Kerry. He's not voting for John Kerry. He is voting against GWB."

Wrong. If he casts a ballot for Kerry than he obviously prefers Kerry over Bush, and therefore is voting for Kerry.

If he was voting against Bush he could sit this out and not vote, cast for Badnarik, Nader, etc., or depending on his state, even write in Teddy Roosevelt if he wants to. All of these would withhold against Bush without helping Kerry.

But obviously Dan is voting for Kerry because he wants Kerry to be president instead of Bush. Try to wrap your neocon mellon around it. It's not that difficult a concept.

Problem Set 2001A: What is the intersection of "Principled Conservatives" and {Newt Gingrich, George Will, Max Boot, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Charles Grassley}?

I'll have to say, that this is one of the exceedingly rare times Prof Drezner got things right before everyone else in the entire planet got on board. Congrats! He's the only high presit in church of Neo-Nutology to question the execution of the war early on. Its unfortunate the Church isn't a meritocracy, cause otherwise you'd be a good candidate for Biship-hood. Just try to remain on Pope Perle's good side, and myabe there's still a chance he'll join the "reality-based" community, and reward performance instead of delusion.

Hmm, "WeeklyStandard" and "principled" don't belong in the same sentence, ever. I decide to see how good ole' billy boy is doing, and guess what i find on their front page -- http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/811gdptj.asp

I'd forgotten about Hayes.

Levin seems certain that such cooperation never took place. I wish I could be so sure. What happened to "the relationship?" At this point, we don't know. And we won't know until thousands of pages of Iraqi Intelligence paperwork is authenticated and translated.

Truly, a devout church-going member who hasn't given up faith in one of the pillars of the Neo-Nutology dogma.

You would think, after serving as the cheif propoganda tool of the administration in the run-up to the war, Billy-Boy would reign in on the make-shit-up-and-publish-it parade. But I guess not. Now an army of wingnuts will be quoting the standard telling us Iraq is still responsible for 9/11 because even though we have cant be 100% certain they dint help.

The WingNut standard is Billy Boy's trash-rag. That aint no principle I'm familiar with.

The Iraqi Freedom Operation becomes a success when, and only when, the Iraqi people decide they are willing to fight, kill, and die for freedom.

This kind of Iraqi decision is not something Americans can force -- but terrorist murders DO encourage it. There is NO evidence that more Occupation troops, more responsibility on Americans instead of Iraqis, would get there sooner.

Liberation was successful. Iraqi hero-making freedom fighting is going to be successful. The Iraqis being murdered by terrorists while waiting in lines to sign up as Iraqi Police; the IP killed in action; the gov't leaders and those who cooperate with Americans who were killed -- THESE are the future heroes of Iraq's great war, against terrorists, for Iraqi freedom. Yes, helped by the Americans -- but fought, and won, by Iraqi blood.

Iraqi blood, spilt for Iraqi freedom.

Iraqi blood, worth it for the Iraqis, proof of their desire to be free.

Iraqi blood, payment for freedom.

When commenters tell me "let's be honest here," I know it means "I can't prove it, but all the cool kids think so." Less dramatically, those sentiments of "this is true, trust me" echo throughout this thread. It is rather anti-persuasive. It is the Joe Wilson approach to convincing others, otherwise known only on used-car lots.

So, Tom Friedman thinks it's the conservatives who got distracted by 30-year distant war records? Is he mad? After war records didn't work in 1992 and 1996 we stayed away from that live wire, capice? Check the archives at the NYT, Tom. It wasn't us.

The problem, Dan, is that your list of conservatives includes only one who really matters -- Grassley, who as chairman of the Finance Committee has not devoted a great deal of time or effort to staking out an alternative Republican position on foreign policy issues.

It's a tough idea to sell on the Internet, but Action speaks much louder than Comment. George Will and Max Boot can't act -- they hold no public office and wouldn't take one if it were offered -- they can only talk. The conservatives who can act (mostly those in Congress) have mostly done exactly what Friedman says they have.

They have been intently focused on backing the President and beating the liberals as the surest way of maintaining their own respective positions. And they -- not columnists or bloggers or opinion magazine editors no matter how widely quoted -- define the conservative position on the war in Iraq. I can understand why some might find the evolution of Newt Gingrich's or William Kristol's thinking on this subject interesting in an academic sense. In any practical sense, though, it has no importance whatever.

I do not care whether you are talking about troop strength, looting, or Fallujah, there were credible people with differing views on every side of these (and other) questions in real time. And differing views remain to this day.

I'm a big Bush supporter yet in real time I did not agree with everything that the president did in Iraq (I absolutely do agree with the decision to go to Iraq).

With all due respect, I find it wholly without merit that one can - at this point - claim that their views, which differed from the administration, have been vindicated by events in Iraq. Those claiming such have irresponsibly caused deep divisions in this country over what amounts to tactical squabbles. It. Is. Too. Early. To. Tell. What. Mistakes. Were. Made. In. Iraq. Anyone claiming otherwsie is misleading people.

In Mr. Drezner's case he has so deluded himself into prematurely concluding that events have proved that Bush screwed up that he has decided to cast a vote to entrust our national security apparatus to a man that he himself has little confidence in.

When history looks back on Iraq, if successful, no credible person will make the wildly speculative charges against this administration that are being made now....it's just ridiculous to conclude otherwise.

Um, enough with the Andrew Sullivan stuff. Everyone knows that Andrew has intellectually melted down beacuse of his anger over the president's position on gay marriage and the FMA. The guy is just not credible anymore.

the hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist of the u.s. marines
-- thomas friedman

The Iraqi Freedom Operation becomes a success when, and only when, the Iraqi people decide they are willing to fight, kill, and die for freedom.

True. They're making more than 80 attacks a day, I guess a bunch of them are willing.

This kind of Iraqi decision is not something Americans can force -- but terrorist murders DO encourage it.

Yes. On the other hand, if we had enough guys on the ground to discourage terrorists then iraqis might not feel as intensely about it but they could organise a government quicker. And it would be a government that at least paid lip-service to cooperating with us. A lot less bloody.

There is NO evidence that more Occupation troops, more responsibility on Americans instead of Iraqis, would get there sooner.

All the successes that people quote had many more US troops compared to iraqis than we do now. Except afghanistan, whose success is still potential.

Liberation was successful. Iraqi hero-making freedom fighting is going to be successful.

Too soon to tell. After we pull out everybody will say they were a freedom fighter, but that might not have anything to do with them being successful. The french resistance wasn't particularly successful at getting the germans out, but every soldier the germans devoted to the occupation was one soldier less on the eastern front. It depends.

Iraqi blood, worth it for the Iraqis, proof of their desire to be free.

Iraqi blood, payment for freedom.

Yes, but while they're fighting us they aren't sorting out very well how they'll run things after we're gone, and they aren't policing themselves very well about looting and attacks on iraqis. And we may be killing far more of them than is useful for hero-making etc.

Um, enough with the Andrew Sullivan stuff. Everyone knows that Andrew has intellectually melted down beacuse of his anger over the president's position on gay marriage and the FMA. The guy is just not credible anymore.

Why not address whatever arguments he makes on their merits? If they're no good then we can speculate on his motives for making stupid arguments.

My speculation about your motives for this stupid armgument is that you have no reasonable answer to his claims so you attack his motives.

I make this speculation with no idea what he's actually saying, since you didn't quote him or give any indication what he said that you disagreed with.

If a guy says "I have secret information about iraqi WMDs, I know exactly where they are" then maybe he's credible or not depending on his past record; how well did his previous secret information turn out? (At this point the Bush administration has zero credibility with anybody who cares about its track record.)

But if he isn't claiming he knows secrets, if he's only analysing public information, what does it matter how "credible" he is? What he says can stand on its own independent of who says it.