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In a Polarized Nation
04/29/2003

Mansoor Ijaz is a great source for information about the Middle East. In an article on NRO today, his area of expertise touches on an issue arising from the polarized nature of our nation:

The unearthing of documents directly linking Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization to Saddam Hussein this weekend may have hermetically sealed the Bush administration's case that dismantling Iraq's Baathist enterprise was in part necessary to undo terrorism's dynamic duo. But closing that case may reopen a Pandora's box for ex-Clinton administration officials who still believe their policy prescriptions protected U.S. national interests against the growing threat of terrorism during the past decade.

I don't think I'm going too far out on my partisan limb to suggest that there are many folks demanding evidence of WMDs who actually hope that it never appears (which may be why they are so willing to go out on their own limbs, risking what little credibility they have left should the weapons be found). I do find it curious, however, that they are — and have been since the war began — so absolutely silent about emerging information, such as that from Ijaz, about the Iraq–al Qaeda connection. It makes me think, first of all, that they've suspected that it existed all along. It also suggests that they may have some inkling of the implications that it would have for their most recent President.

Not that credibility or truth mean much to the crowd in question. The fact of the matter is that the pro-war argument has remained the same, like a Trivial Pursuit game piece filled with all the requisite wedges: WMDs, terrorism, flaunted U.N. resolutions, the barbarous nature of the regime, the world economy (oil), and so on. At this point, the anti forces are merely quibbling over whether certain questions were answered fairly — whether the refusal, on Saddam's part, to prove a lack of WMDs counts toward that wedge. In any case, the fight over that piece only goes to show that the others are firmly in position. As Arizona Representative J.D. Hayworth puts it (also on NRO):

What makes the left's "find WMDs or else" argument even more curious is that for months we were told that the president was constantly changing his rationale for war, going from WMDs to Iraq's link to 9/11 and terrorism to human rights to regime change to introducing democracy into the Arab Middle East and back to WMDs again. The fact is, it was all those reasons, and yet the critics can now remember only one.

Actually, I don't know that "curious" is the word. Their behavior is perfectly understandable: it's an entire worldview that is coming into question. Personally, I can't wait to see what the "conservatives' 60s" looks like.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 07:03 PM EST