The Big Picture

Peter Feaver defends the choice to go to war with Iraq. He concludes:

I believe reasonable people can look at that ledger (or a more complete version of it) and conclude that the Iraq war was not worth it. I also believe reasonable people can look at that ledger and conclude that the Iraq war was a defensible gamble or even the right decision. However, I do not think that reasonable people can seriously look at that ledger and conclude, as so much of the angry-shout part of the commentariat does, that all of the evidence stacks up on only one side of the balance sheet.

Six years into this long war, it is high time we started having an honest debate about it, and that honesty requires a great deal more humility, on both sides of the debate, about the decisions that were made and the paths that were not taken.