There does appear to be few CL apologists around having at least recognised the reality of Iraq and therefore realising something has to be done.

It would be good for CL to write his pearls of ‘wisdom’ on this topic as it always provides a laugh

But the disappearance of right wing blogs (which dominated the scene as recently as 2003) is of interest in itself, as is the increasing rarity of comment by the remaining right wing blogs on the Iraq war or the merits of the Bush Administration, which used to be their core topics. If you check the Troppo blogroll, you’ll find that about half the RWDB sites have shut up shop since the last update, and several others have shifted mostly to cultural or personal stuff.

Of course, as you say, this could be because the war is an undoubted success and the Bush Administration is universally recognised (except by the handful of anti-American Democrats who voted against it last November) as the greatest of modern times. Given this stunning success, maybe there’s no need to blog about it.

Sad thing about Iraq/Bush dynamics is the Dems will see how the far right managed to turn the Vietnam debacle against them and will probably not try too hard to block Bush’s escalation, allowing cold calculus to prevail. Because, without a scintilla of doubt (yes, please quote me if I’m wrong) he will fail, it will go from worse to worst, and after a huge amount more bloodshed he’ll be roared out of office along with the entire misguided theory of violent large-L liberalism.

The Iraq War is an undoubted success and even the “insurgency” is piss-weak, historically speaking. The terrorists find it very hard to kill Americans, they get slaughtered by the hundred on an almost weekly basis and mostly blow up passers-by and little old ladies in market squares. Somehow I doubt they’re winning hearts and minds.

For the Vietnam analogy to be accurate, you’d have to imagine Ho and Jiap captured, tried and dead; the North Vietnamese big battalians beaten and its air force and other regular fighting forces destroyed; the Communist government overthrown; elections held and the sovereignty of the renewed nation officially recognised at international law. The only worthwhile point of comparison is that, like Vietnam, we are fighting a war caused by Democrat incompetence which hyperventilating critics want to lose in order to get square with a President they loathe. That’s about it.

Currency Lad’s belief in the war, as I understand it, comes from the perspective of a much longer term view than is most often being discussed. As it appears, C.L. equates the Iraq war with other major world wars (perhaps not in geographic scale, but allowably in terms of influence), and his view may well prove correct. The USA may well, in the very long term, have sparked off such dramatic change that the region finds overall benefit.

My beliefs don’t align with C.L.’s in terms of how the war was brought about, or that war is the way to go at all. Apart from the blind and brutal urgency of their private agenda, Bush and Howard spun their intentions to bomb Iraq and, like those headstrong (at the time) advocates, C.L. caught that tornado ball and swallowed that spin. I don’t know if that ball sitting inside those who remain with their original views on Iraq is doing them any good.

Likewise, I think it doesn’t hurt to be open to a changed view on the possible benefits of Iraq for those like me who thought it shouldn’t have happened originally. The last thing we want the way things are is to have a media swing around and serve the public hue and cry, now, about its horrors.

This brings us back to the way the war was brought about. Whether it was needed in the first place is now academic; what is real is that the neo-con pre-emptive our-way-only style has left its advocates with no voice.

That that incredibly headstrong style didn’t work and is now unsupported can be exacted as a fact. Ken Parish points repeatedly towards the silence from those once vociferous sectors. That silence is explicit in proving the way the war was brought about was wrong. Support, whatever it was from around the world, is lost, as it is lost from within the US itself.

Had the war been prosecuted differently, supporters of any possible overall benefits would now have a stronger voice. They’ve all ended up looking like the bloke in the picture. C.L.’s presence, while perhaps disagreeable, is in the very least keeping the door open to others who supported the war and decide to untangle themselves and rejoin the discussion.

And still he keeps a sense of humour. You’ve got to stay positive and hang onto your mates, C.L.

Rather harsh, Ken. For mine, I can’t decide whether the media coverage of this dude strikes me as more analagous to picking on someone with a disability or taking the Chaser seriously.

The silence of the RWDBs on Iraq is itself a measure of how reality has finally hit home.

Quite, although each of the linked posts makes some points that I at least found interesting, even if the overall slant is predictable. But that’s exactly why I highlighted the lack of right-leaning posts on this issue. Surely it’s possible to make an at least vaguely plausible case in favour of Bush’s new strategy? I don’t like the idea of “cutting and running” and leaving Iraq to Al Qaeda and the Mahdi mob any more than you do, but it’s difficult to see a plausible alternative strategy (except perhaps engineered partition about which I blogged a couple of years ago). Certainly I seriously doubt that a short-term “surge” of 20,000 troops will achieve anything at all except provide even more targets for the terrorists. Do you have any specific ideas? I agree with Homer Paxton; it’s high time you ended your blogging hiatus, CL.

My God, this is incredible. I can hardly believe it.

I’m flattered that people believe I am an economist, but I am not (BA(Hons)/LLB). Andrew L and I both did political science, however, and that’s the main discipline we are drawing on in our (very civil) disagreement.