Let me introduce you to the new meme:

Judging whether the Iraq war and occupation was a good idea or the right thing to do based on the principle that things are, or seem like they soon will be, better there than they were before treats war as merely a neutral policy tool. The question preceding any decision to go to war shouldnt be as simple as: Might some long-term good occur out of this? (especially when any attempt to wonder whether or not things might or could have been better in Iraq in 2012 than they were in 2002 even if we never invaded will be dismissed as childish sci-fi thinking, and the costs of likely more than a couple of trillion by 2017 thought of as all in a days good work, and for our kids to pay off anyway). The real question before a war needs to be: is this absolutely necessary given a fair consideration of the horrors and unpredictability of war and the purpose of the U.S. military? Which is not: make the world a better place, somewhere down the line, killing lots of people on the way. For America’s future, this kind of victory in Iraq could really mean defeat.

[See above for my reasons not to favor The Nation with a link.]

Remove the petulance, the breezy assumption that Doherty’s opinion on root causes are settled truths, and the reflexive loathing of the neoconservatives, and you have - well, about three or so paragraphs, but somewhere in there is the signal that portions of the antiwar movement would really like to stop talking about concrete interventions and instead return to having abstract discussions on the need for intervention.

This is welcome for two reasons. First, this is a discussion that we should actually be having anyway. It looks increasingly like Iran will be a foreign policy headache that could potentially stretch into the next few Presidential administrations, and now indeed would be a good time to discuss what we need to do about it (and before somebody starts shouting: yes, that does include discussing whether anything needs to be done about it at all). Contrary to the antiwar movement’s belief, we are not actively conspiring to invade Iran - this President wouldn’t be shy about saying so if he was - but we may have to. Or the next President may have to. It’d be nice to work it all out ahead of time, particularly since we were given that rude surprise by all of those “progressives” who suddenly realized that their commentary about supporting freedom and democracy didn’t count if a Republican could take credit for it.

And there’s the second reason. If various people and groups are falling back from “We can’t win this fight” to “Fine, we won, but should we have fought?” or “Just because we won there doesn’t mean that we should get into the bad habit of fighting,” then it’s going to get very, very lonely out there for the people who won’t retreat. Personally, I hope that the antiwar movement sticks it out to the bitter end.

It’s a shame that I picked an infantry military metaphor for this post, because All the way to the ground would have been a great way to end it. Ach, well.