As President Bush began to speak of a war in Iraq as if it was inevitable, countless Americans took to the streets in outrage. Hoping against hope, they attempted to sway the resolve of a notoriously stubborn leader - a colossal task that bore no fruit. I was one of these Americans. I was wrong.
Amidst the endless reports of U.S. casualties, executive ineptitude and the seemingly slow rate of progress in Iraq, my about-face this late in the game may seem almost unthinkable. Indeed, millions of Americans are having just the opposite change of heart, as polling data clearly demonstrates. This massive withdrawal of support reflects widespread unease about the mounting costs of war - a political phenomenon as ancient as war itself.
My belated approval, however, has little to do with the state of the Iraqi occupation, although it is partly encouraged by emerging signs of progress. Such a radical personal revelation was only possible after I decided to shelve my political biases and rationally consider the issue. This was a difficult task because my mind was clouded with a long-standing disgust with the president and his party.
As uncomfortable as this change was, it helped to resolve many of the nagging doubts that plagued my former position, and was ultimately liberating. In retrospect, all it took to remove these mental burdens was the fulfillment of a basic duty of citizenship: Dispassionate logical thought. This is not to say, however, that morality has no place in such thinking, as moral conclusions can be derived from logical consideration.
Many argue that the invasion of Iraq was a violation of national sovereignty. But does a murderous tyrant deserve carte blanche protection from foreign action? Traditionally, territorial integrity is not to be violated because doing so harms the ability of a state to fulfill its fundamental duties, as war damages the institutions that protect individual freedoms. Sadaam Hussein refused to honor even the most basic human freedoms - most importantly the right to life. As the president of Iraq, he presided over the genocide of thousands of Kurdish civilians, murdering more than 50,000 in the span of just two years during the Anfal conflict of 1987-1989. Clearly, the Baathist regime was failing to provide the political goods that must be secured before any nation can claim a right to self-determination.
Princeton professor Michael Walzer clarifies the proper boundaries of sovereignty when he writes: "Against the enslavement or massacre of political opponents, national minorities and religious sects, there may well be no help unless help comes from outside. And when a government turns savagely upon its own people, we must doubt the very existence of a political community to which the idea of self-determination might apply."
Those who accuse the president of war crimes on account of his failure to achieve United Nations permission could make a strikingly similar case against President Clinton's intervention in Serbia - a shamelessly partisan fit of selective memory. In reality, Bush's half-hearted appeal to the Security Council was a formality, and an utterly transparent attempt to hush the cries of unilateralism emanating from the political left. Yet the frequently heard (and patently false) portrayal of the Iraq war as a lonely excursion devoid of European support is baseless and assuredly offensive to the majority of European states, 18 in all, that supported a U.S.-led overthrow of Hussein's regime.
If, as some allege, our "unilateral" invasion is detrimental to the U.N.'s power to restrict the actions of its members, the Security Council itself should not be immune to a similar implication. In fact, to lie complacent while an officially recognized state fails to comply with no less than 17 Security Council resolutions would inflict far more damage to the U.N.'s credibility.
I deplore the tactics the Bush administration used to justify Iraq's invasion as much as anyone else. But what is most unfortunate about the intelligence controversy and the president's ever-shifting rationale is that the actions of a select few now overshadow what will someday be seen as a warranted, if not overdue, regime change. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and FDR allowed the internment of Japanese-Americans en masse, but neither president's conduct harmed the legitimacy of the wars over which they presided. A premature withdrawal will only eliminate the possibility of a free and stable Iraq. Though President Bush is no modern Lincoln or FDR, the war he embarked upon is no less justified then those of many of his predecessors, but this will only be apparent if the United States sees it through.
Only when Americans are able to separate their disdain for America's current leadership from the war will reality finally set in. The cradle of civilization is now free of a murderous regime, and democracy is slowly taking hold where it has never before. The fight has not been easy, and seems hopeless at times. The liberation of oppressed peoples, however, remains a worthy cause.
Greenleigh is a government sophomore.
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