National Review Retreats
by Marcus Epstein

National Review has finally issued a surprisingly semi-sober editorial acknowledging the true state of affairs in Iraq. They now condemn the Wilsonianism neoconservative mindset that America can import democracy to Iraq. They denounce the extreme optimism that denies that any American failures or difficulties occur in Iraq. And, while not admitting that the war was a bad idea to begin with, they at least call for a relatively prompt withdrawal from Iraq. This is a substantial retreat from their previous positions. Good for them.

The editorial concludes,

Ultimately, even if our choices now can help or hurt, it is Iraqis who have to save Iraq. It is their country, not ours. In coming weeks and months, we will have to defer to the authorities we hope will eventually take control, in the process endorsing compromises that we will consider less than ideal. But it is time for reality to drive our Iraq policy, unhindered by illusions or wishful thinking. We should do what we can to give Iraqis a chance at a better future, then pray that they take it.

I couldn't agree more, but it would be nice if National Review could admit that they were the ones full of illusions and wishful thinking. Maybe they could issue a mea culpa and apologize to the "unpatriotic" conservatives who have urged a "self-fulfilling defeatism." Just for fun, I thought it would be nice to compare what National Review's new illusion-free editorial board might think about earlier comments made in the nations premiere conservative magazine.

Now:
Since the conclusion of the war, the Bush administration has shown a dismaying capacity to believe its own public relations. The post-war looting was explained away as the natural and understandable exuberance of a newly-liberated people.

Then: (The Great Sorting Out, by David Pryce-Jones - May, 05 2003)

Violence is latent in Iraq, but with forethought and goodwill retired general Jay Garner and the several hundred other American officials of the newly formed Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance should be able to contain and defang it.

Now:
Secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld denied the obvious reality of a guerrilla resistance and compared it to urban street crime in the United States.

Then: (343: Real Numbers in Iraq, by Michael Novak - February 2, 2004)

These 343 (not 500) combat deaths, furthermore, need to be set in context. During 2003, the number of homicides in Chicago was 599, in New York City 596, in Los Angeles 505, in Detroit 361, in Philadelphia 347, in Baltimore 271, in Houston 276, and in Washington 247. That makes 3,002 murders in only eight cities.

Then: (Cracks in Iraq's Resistance, by John O Sullivan - April 1, 2003)

History has some lessons to teach us here. In 1945 Germany resisted the allied advance to the bitter end, relying on the fanaticism of the SS and calling up elderly men and 14-year-old Hitler Youth, despite the deep war-weariness of the German people. There were even plans for a campaign of guerrilla resistance - the so-called "Werewolves" - after a formal German surrender. The wartime allies took this threat very seriously. With Hitler's death, however, the Nazi myth of totalitarian power evaporated and the entire apparatus of terror collapsed. Those who had acted from Nazi conviction - like Saddam's thugs - vanished into the shadows, deprived of the drug of power that had sustained them in their wickedness. Those who had acted from fear - like ordinary Iraqis today - were suddenly released from a living nightmare. Not a single "Werewolf" emerged from his lair. And the allies, who had arrived as conquerors not liberators, soon found themselves handing out food parcels to a grateful German population. That will happen in Iraq too. When? That no one can predict with certainty. But happen it will - and not long after the battle of Baghdad is joined.

Now:
But this concession points to an intellectual mistake made prior to the occupation: an underestimation in general of the difficulty of implanting democracy in alien soil, and an overestimation in particular of the sophistication of what is fundamentally still a tribal society and one devastated by decades of tyranny... But Iraq was not a Wilsonian - or a "neoconservative" - war. It was broadly supported by the Right as a war of national interest. The primary purpose of the war was always to protect U.S. national security, by removing a destabilizing and radical influence in the strategically crucial Persian Gulf and eliminating a potential threat to the United States.

Then: (The Event of the Age, by Victor David Hanson - October 23, 2003)

The only constant is that [liberal elites] will probably proclaim themselves to be Wilsonians a year from now when Iraq is calmed down and a consensual government established there. Yet while the elites of America and Europe chatter on, so also does the building of democracy in Iraq…
Removing dictators and implanting democracies, after all, used to be just as much a Democratic idea as was the use of force to ensure national security in a world of dangerous and criminal tyrants [emphasis added]. But now the sorry crop of would-be presidents resembles Republican antiwar contenders circa early 1939, who would have been outraged had we agreed to join Britain in stopping a nascent Hitler in Poland and France...The future of the Middle East, the credibility of the United States as both a strong and a moral power, the war against the Islamic fundamentalists, the future of the U.N. and NATO, our own politics here at home - now hinge on America's efforts at creating a democracy out of chaos in Iraq.

Then: (Democratizing Iraq, by Eleana Gordon - December 1, 2003)

[President Bush] made it clear that America's days of tolerating Arab dictators for the sake of an illusory stability are over. Skeptics argue that the notion of exporting democracy to Iraq is Wilsonian utopianism. Iraqis, they argue, are too fractured and divided for democracy, and what they really need is a "strong hand" (read: another dictator or at least a strongman) to hold them together. A recent three-week visit to Iraq and months of working with Iraqi democracy activists, have convinced me that the naysayers are too quick to dismiss the potential for democracy in Iraq. But on one point their arguments have force: We should not take it for granted that democracy will come easily to Iraqis. Thus far, the administration has done way too little to advance the process of creating democratic values and institutions.

Then: (Hall of Shame, by NR Staff - April 20, 2003)

National Review, shortly after the fall of Baghdad, came up with a "Hall of Shame" to highlight the "many pundits, pols, and, yes, celebs" who "said so many wrong - and downright silly - things about the war in Iraq, prewar. Among the statements deemed worthy of the Hall of Shame was one by Eric Alterman questioning Wolfowitz's belief that the Iraqis would welcome us as "their hoped-for liberators" Another "shameful" statement was by Nicholas von Hoffman saying: "...if Saddam thinks the average Iraqi is going to miss him [if he is defeated], he's deluding himself. But if President Bush thinks our invasion and occupation will go smoothly because Iraqis will welcome us, then he too is deluding himself."

Now:
Who was deluding themselves back then?

An earlier version of this article appeared at Lewrockwell.com