A reader writes:
So I was re-reading your edited volume of your Iraq War blogging, “I Was Wrong“, and came across this passage:
Maybe in a decade or so, we’ll see the real fruits of this noble, flawed experiment. I’m still hoping.
That was June 15, 2004, almost precisely 10 years ago. Sometimes you just have to whistle.
I don’t want to sound like I’m being overly harsh or having fun at your expense. To your
credit, you’ve been infinitely more candid about how the Iraq debacle changed your views on foreign policy than most writers, and you have enough self-awareness and self-respect to avoid the self-parodying broken-record schtick that Kristol, Feith, Wolfiwitz, Cheney, et al are currently inflicting upon us all.
But that being said, I have to look back at that sentence and highlight the word “experiment.” It didn’t occur to me on the first reading last fall, but that word sticks out now. It sounds as if Sullivan circa 2004 honestly viewed the invasion, decapitation, and military occupation of another nation as a fit activity for trial-and-error, can’t-make-an-omelet-without-breaking-a-few-eggs kind of thinking. And I am appalled. It’s an attitude right out of the 19th Century: old-fashioned imperialism coated with a veneer of respectable justification.
Maybe it’s time to just retire the terms “neoconservative” and “interventionist” altogether. Imperialism and colonialism should be called by their proper names.
More reader discussion over “I Was Wrong” here.
The Dish 