A Moral War

The project in Iraq can succeed, and leave its critics scrambling.

As usual, Victor Davis Hanson hits the nail on the head with this essay in which he argues that the coming victory in Iraq will leave the ankle biting critics in the dust, once again trying to figure out where they went wrong. As Iraq becomes more and more an independent and successful democracy the self-anointed moral elites will come to be seen for the cynical, triangulating frauds that they are.

This is now what comprises statesmanship: Some renounce their earlier support for the war. Others, less imaginative, in Clintonian (his and hers) fashion, take credit for backing the miraculous victory of spring 2003, but in hindsight, of course, blame the bloody peace on Bush. Or, better yet, they praise Congressman Murtha to the skies, but under no circumstances go on record urging the military to follow his advice.

How strange that journalists pontificate post facto about all the mistakes that they think have been made, nevertheless conceding that here we are on the verge of a third and final successful election. No mention, of course, is ever made about the current sorry state of journalistic ethics and incompetence (cf. Jayson Blair, Judy Miller, Michael Isikoff, Bob Woodward, Eason Jordan). A group of professionals, after all, who cannot even be professional in their own sphere, surely have no credibility in lecturing the U.S. military about what they think went wrong in Iraq.