Because It Wasn't Working, Perhaps?

Jeremy Greenstock, whom you all remember—actually, no one remembers him. He was Britain’s ambassador to the UN back in 2003, so transfer this information only to your short-term memory because his irrelevence will resume after this post—continues to blame the Bush administration for the continuing slide of liberalism in Europe.

Specifically, he chides the speed at which the US went to war with Iraq in 2003. He would have preferred an additional six months of diplomacy.

Liberals have a ten-minute retention of history,* so let us back up. In August of 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. One of the largest international coalitions of forces in military history built up a massive army, including the first time the US and the still-then-USSR coordinated their militaries against a common threat (the USSR, you may recall, assisted the US logistically). It was a pretty big deal, if Greenstock recalls. In January of 1991, the coalition struck and crushed the Iraqi army within days. We were so overwhelming that Iraqi troops were surrendering to news crews.

Greenstock believes that another six months of diplomacy would have been better? What, something the previous 150 months of diplomacy had missed?Anyway, for the next twelve-and-a-half years, Hussein lived under a diplomatic umbrella, continuing to hurt and starve his people, pursue and develop NBC weapons (as reckoned by the UN itself, so none of this “there were no WMDs” nonsense), and pose a major threat to stability in the region. ‘Twas perhaps the most lavish and well-appointed house arrest in history.

And Greenstock decided that another six months would have been better? What, something the previous 150 months of diplomacy had missed? The US invaded Iraq in March, 2003, which by the Czar’s count accomplished more in the next 80-and-a-half months. Hmm, wait. It looks like the US invasion of Iraq was at least twice as effective at bringing democracy to Iraq. The Czar says “at least” because, as of early March 2003, diplomacy still had not brought any measure of change to Iraq. Greenstock admits that he wanted to give Hussein one last chance to disarm, because the previous several thousand warnings were ever-so-close to working.

Greenstock is a former ambassador for a very good reason.

* This is why liberal blog entries and magazine articles tend to be quite short. Anything more than a page, and the author can no longer recall what his original point was.