Before You Read Bill Kristol About ‘What to Do in Iraq,’ Read Bill Kristol in February 2002 About What to Do in Iraq

Weekly Standard Editor
William Kristol and American Enterprise Institute Critical Threats
Project Director (yes, these people give themselves titles like
this) Frederick W. Kagan have a piece up entitled “What
to Do in Iraq,” which—spoiler alert!—advocates more U.S.
military force, more boots on the ground. Excerpt:

This would require a willingness to send American forces back to
Iraq. It would mean not merely conducting U.S. air strikes, but
also accompanying those strikes with special operators, and perhaps
regular U.S. military units, on the ground. This is the only chance
we have to persuade Iraq’s Sunni Arabs that they have an
alternative to joining up with al Qaeda or being at the mercy of
government-backed and Iranian-backed death squads, and that we have
not thrown in with the Iranians. It is also the only way to regain
influence with the Iraqi government and to stabilize the Iraqi
Security Forces on terms that would allow us to demand the
demobilization of Shi’a militias and to move to limit Iranian
influence and to create bargaining chips with Iran to insist on the
withdrawal of their forces if and when the situation
stabilizes.

In a nod to their diminished reputations as armchair generals,
Kristol and Kagan tack on this defensive ending:

Now is not the time to re-litigate either the decision to invade
Iraq in 2003 or the decision to withdraw from it in 2011. The
crisis is urgent, and it would be useful to focus on a path ahead
rather than indulge in recriminations. All paths are now fraught
with difficulties, including the path we recommend. But the
alternatives of permitting a victory for al Qaeda and/or
strengthening Iran would be disastrous.

It’s never really the right time for
neoconservatives to “re-litigate” their past mistakes, since the
consequences from them are constantly filling the world with new
Critical Threats. But that really shouldn’t stop the rest of
us.

Want to dislodge the rest of your lunch? Go back and read the
entirety of Bill Kristol’s
February 2, 2002 testimony in front of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee about the next steps in the War on Terror.
Here’s a section that’s particularly poignant this week, given the
awful news coming out of the Middle East:

The one point I would make is that I think in all the discussion
of risks we have lost sight of some of the rewards of a reasonably
friendly, reasonably pro-Western government in Iraq. It would
really transform the Middle East. A friendly, free, and
oil-producing Iraq would leave Iran isolated. I think Syria would
be cowed. The Palestinians would, I think, be more willing to
negotiate seriously with Israel after this evidence of American
willingness to exert influence in the region. Saudi Arabia would
have much less leverage, if only because of Iraqi oil production
coming on line, with us and with Europe.

Removing Saddam Hussein and his henchmen from power would
 be a genuine opportunity, I think, to transform the political
landscape of the Middle East. The rewards would be very great, and
I would also say the risks of failing to do this I think are very
great.

After the jump more jaw-dropping wrongness from Kristol (and
friends!) 12-plus years ago:

The Bush doctrine seeks to eliminate dictatorial
regimes developing these weapons of mass destruction, especially
such regimes that have a link to terror, and they all happen to do
so. So there is an almost perfect correlation between
terror-sponsoring regimes and regimes developing weapons of mass
 destruction. […]

As my friend Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post
last week: The good news about Iran is that you clearly do have
opposition to the regime. There is something of “a revolution from
below” going on there. The question for us is how we can accelerate
that revolution. One answer is “by the power of example and
overthrowing neighboring radical regimes” would, I think, show the
people of Iran, it would inspire the people of Iran, “show the
fragility of dictatorship,” show that dictatorship is not the
inevitable way in the Middle East or in the Arab world. It would
“challenge the mullahs’ mandate from heaven and encourage
disaffected Iranians to rise.” As Krauthammer points out: “First
Afghanistan to the East, next Iraq to the West, and then Iran.” I
think that is a reasonable strategic template, stipulating always
the uncertainties of war and that one has to be ready for anything
in this broad war on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

Flashback: Read the
difference between the “Bill Kristol camp” and the “Nick
Gillespie camp” during the near-U.S. war against Syria last year.
Then read Reason’s forum on
the Iraq War, 10 years later.