What to think of the war

I haven't written much about the Iraq war since its beginnings some 5 years ago. Usually my personal journals bear out whatever is happening in the world; writing is my own way of thinking things through, I find that identifying questions I have and putting them into words is a crucial step in creating coherent arguments later down the line.

But this war, this damn war continues to elude me.  I've not experienced a social issue in my lifetime that I've had such a hard time finding an opinion for; nothing has proven this difficult.  I've been skeptical at times, but never virulently leftist.  I've entertained the neo-con's PNAC arguments finding some worth in them, but I simply don't know enough.  I doubt Fukuyama's utopian-laced conclusion that we've reached an end of ideological history (a strong pillar of argument for the war); though I find some of his dialectical arguments persuasive.  Maybe my Straussian political science teacher was right, the more I come to doubt democratic virtue the more I think there might be something to that line of thought.

If I know one thing in this mess its that many of the leftists arguments against 'American imperialism' are full of shit.  The up-turned nose, bourgeois ignorance that the Iraqi people had a good thing going under Saddam is sickening.  Its hard to believe that the same crown who supposedly has championed human rights causes for the last 50 years could reject the liberation of Iraq's government and populace on the grounds that the people in that troubled country prefer 'strong men' with dictatorial strains.  Perhaps they forget that their leader was the same man who committed genocide against the Kurds and slaughtered any sign of dissidence in his own country.  

If any group should have been in support of the Iraq war it should have been the left; the liberation of oppressed people is nothing if not a liberal belief.  Isolationism is an inherently conservative position; people seem to readily forget this fact when arguing about America's initial intervention in Iraq.  

I believe there is a correct way to think about international conflicts; though I don't have many answers just yet.  In the search for logical coherence there are some very crucial points which must be confronted:

Religion: This insurgency is being championed by men who really believe the fairy tales their holy books and leaders proclaim.  Their Islamic values are in inherent contradiction with the secularism of the west: this is an impass that demands a logical position.    The masochistic liberals would have us believe that the insurgency is purely reactionary; that it exists only because of an American occupation of their holy lands.  Bullshit.  We do ourselves a dangerous disservice if we doubt what these extremists are clearly telling us.

Bush: The foibles and failures of this president have been clear from the start of the war; he was unclear about our intentions and goals in Iraq; rejected the council of experienced generals, and has let his narcissism cloud the better course of action many times.  But to say that the war is ill-founded simply because our leader is an idiot is too easy, too simple minded, and really doesn't help us find actual answers.

Maybe its the increasing urgency of the issue, or the childish arguments for and against the war, but I feel the need to flesh out this concern sooner rather than later.  Come the end of the year we are going to have a fresh new moron ruling the country and things will be changing, so now is as good a time as ever to start getting contrarian.