Collapse of consensus

The debate surrounding the Bush administration's decision to deliver a decisive and final blow to Saddam Hussein has occasioned many unserious and unfair charges among opponents of that momentous decision. The origins of the Iraq War have been reduced by partisan Democrats to a short narrative. Their theory, crudely stated (how else?), is: sinister neoconservatives persuaded an inexperienced, illegitimate president in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, to "lie us into war."\nThere is a slight problem with this narrative. It isn't true.\nThe rationale for regime change in Baghdad was first articulated by none other than President Clinton who, unlike his successor, lacked the political courage to follow the logic of his own case. I remember the night in 1998 when Mr. Clinton announced the air campaign against "regime targets" in Baghdad. He noted that Saddam's bellicose nature was intolerable and constituted a "clear and present danger" to American national security. The crisis soon ended but not before the Senate passed a resolution, co-sponsored by Joseph Lieberman and John McCain, making the forcible overthrow of Hussein official U.S. policy. It passed unanimously. \nIt is not wise to sneer at history. The uncontested evidence produced by innumerable independent investigations verifies that no "deliberate distortion" was in play. The case for war, I submit, was impeccably judicious. The war itself was a bipartisan war of choice if ever there was one. Only once when the mission hit tough going did partisan Democrats assert that the impetus for regime change in Baghdad was fabricated and continued exertions in the implementation of a liberal regime folly. For such naysayers, the war must be derided prospectively as well as retrospectively.\nAnd here again, the critics contradict themselves without seeming to notice. They argue that the war is being lost and have begun to outline withdrawal timetables. All the enemy needs is time -- and this the proponents of an "exit strategy" wish to provide them.\nIraq was not an arbitrary target selected in the aftermath of Sept. 11. The underlying basis for the war was already well-laid before that date. There was no option to remain above the fray when Hussein was committed to amassing weapons of mass destruction and while Baghdad was housing the headquarters of at least 23 terrorist organizations. As I have argued before, they were the only options of entering the fray early on our own terms or late on the terms of our enemies.\nThe long story of America's determination to remove from power Iraq's virulent anti-American regime might be unfashionable today, but it has an additional merit. It's true; this is no time for political point-scoring. But if you take the view that the war on terror must be fought, you must be against abandoning its central front, Iraq. Those who hold that it constitutes a "diversion" from the war cannot alter this simple fact. The great untold story of the age, then, isn't that the case for war in Iraq was made in error, but that it wasn't.