Victor Davis Hanson Sprays Self with Rhetorical Buckshot

<>Victor Davis Hanson denounces the fifth column of William F. Buckley, Niall Ferguson, Francis Fukuyama, George Will, and others--those:

Victor Davis Hanson on the Middle East on National Review Online: who even before 9/11 demanded that President Clinton or Bush remove Saddam Hussein, but now consider such a move an abject blunder of the first order. Their advocacy helped us get in when there were dubious reasons to go, and their vehement criticism may well get us out when there are now better reasons to stay until Iraq is secure.

Hanson's assertion that he believed back in 2003 that there were "dubious reasons to go" into Iraq is very interesting. It does not fit his declarations back on March 18, 2003, when he wrote:

Victor Davis Hanson on 48-Hour Speech on National Review Online: The president reviewed the history of disarming Saddam Hussein, and reminded us it is not pretty: violation of the 1991 armistice accords, obstruction of U.N. resolutions, sanctions, and inspectors, a record of aggression, hatred of America, and a propensity to abet and engage in terrorism.... [W]ar nonetheless has come due to the 12 years of U.N. dereliction and the moral cowardice of the world--a policy of appeasement that nearly ruined the 20th century, but in an age of frightful weapons would surely result in global suicide of our own.

The fact is that U.S. Marines will find more deadly weapons in the first hours of war than the U.N. did in three months. And by day two the world will have forgotten Dominique de Villepin and be listening instead to Tommy Franks, who will practice a different sort of diplomacy. Get out of town in 48 hours sounds tough — but not when it results in liberation, rather than subjugation, and reconstruction instead of destruction.

Critics have claimed that Mr. Bush has backed himself into a corner; it is hard to see how when his promise was democracy and freedom for a tyrannized Iraq. We should not underestimate the power of his message of human liberty or the need of overwhelming force to ensure it. The EU, the U.N., NATO, the European street, the American Left, and a host of others, by failing to understand the post 9/11 world and its requirement to neutralize Saddam Hussein, have unnecessarily put their perceived wisdom, prestige, and influence in jeopardy — and with the liberation of Iraq they all are going to lose big time.

Now the battlefield, Thucydides's harsh schoolmaster, will adjudicate what talk cannot. The only question remaining is not the ultimate verdict, but to what degree the past failure of allies to support the United States emboldened Saddam Hussein, cost the American military tactical surprise, complicated logistics, and needlessly raised casualties.

Three years from now will Victor Davis Hanson be writing that in the spring of 2003 there were only "dubious reasons to stay" in Iraq? Place your bets.