Imperative wars versus wars of choice

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

I've been thinking about the debate about Iraq, and it seems that one of the things that bothers me about the debate over Iraq, as someone who generally supports just wars, but has serious concerns about this Iraq war, is that the Right, and those who unequivocally support this war assume this was an imperative war. This explains the World War II and Civil War analogies.

Considering the threat Hitler and Japan posed, I don't think it's at all absurd to suggest that World War II was an imperative war. WE had a clear threat, and clear allied support. I believe the same could be said of Afghanistan. With Iraq however, while a moral case can be made from removing Saddam, with all the evidence of the lack of an imminent threat, or a link to the terrorists who posed the prime threat, this war could hardly be called imperative. That being said, even if one felt Saddam deserved removal, we certainly had wiggle room to solidify our allied coalition, formulate an exit strategy, and to make sure war was the only option.


The argument from the conservatives is always the same: We need to fight the terrorists over there, so we don't have to fight them over here. Then they look back to World War II and other wars, whenever questions of postwar planning or causalities arise. "If we had waited during World War II, the Germans would have won" they'll say. "It took years to rebuild Germany after the war." This argument misses the point, that Iraq is not Germany, and while Saddam was a murderous despot, and his being deposed is a good thing, Saddam was not a Hitler-level threat, or a bin-Laden-level threat.

You can simply argue that this is merely the strategy of the "warmongering neo-con forces," to justify their flawed foreign policy. Yet it seems that otherwise reasonable people fall into this trap, and if the "not against all wars, but against this war" argument is to stand, it must be fought on the grounds that Iraq is not like World War II, or the Civil War, or the Revolutionary War, or the war in Afghanistan (all wars I'm sure we all support).

Now there are of course those who oppose all wars, on pacifist grounds. That is a whole different situation. My final point is this, if you meet someone who supports the Iraq War unequivocally, regardless of what's happened, ask them to explain why this war was imperative. Ask them explain the case for diverting from the larger war on terror to Iraq, or how Iraq is part of the larger war on terror. I support the war on terror, and I still think Saddam being gone is a good thing, but I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why Iraq couldn't wait, after all that we know, and I hope to God I can get an answer that doesn't include anything about John Kerry's supposedly weak defense record, or George Bush's supposedly unwavering moral vision.

Sorry about the long post.