[bigdog]

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, some conservative critics of the war have argued that we went to Iraq in pursuit of the wrong mission—that is, democratization.

As Charles R. Kesler, the editor of the Claremont Review of Books, puts it: “the case for toppling Saddam was much stronger than the one for staying indefinitely to buy time for the Iraqis to democratize.” And this, too, touches a signature neoconservative issue.

It is hard to picture what would be better today, either for the Iraqis or for us and our interests, had we just deposed Saddam and left. Numerous scenarios are imaginable, all of them grisly. Saddam might have been succeeded by one of his equally bloody henchmen, like the infamous “Chemical Ali.”

An ethnically-based civil war might have broken out, or the country might have devolved into anarchy like Somalia, except with infinitely more weapons available. Or Iraq’s neighbors might have torn it to pieces, with the largest piece consumed by Iran.

Perhaps Kesler envisions that we could have installed a benign dictator. This thought is not far from that of some neoconservatives themselves, who believe that we would have done better to place Ahmad Chalabi in power.

But whether it would have been Chalabi or Ayad Allawi (who served briefly as prime minister) or some other Iraqi to our liking, this would not have reduced our own burdens a whit. No such figure could have remained in power unless we shouldered the job of preserving him by force.

To the contrary, the measure of democracy that has taken hold in Iraq—along with the degree of legitimacy, however attenuated, that this has given to both the Iraqi authorities and our own continued presence—has made our burdens there so much the lighter.

Indeed, what with high voter participation and a degree of give-and-take among the various factions, democratization can be said to have received a decent start in Iraq. To be sure, the functioning of the Iraqi government has been inadequate, but more mature democracies have also faltered under the pressures of war and terror.

In the meantime, government on the local level, at least in areas relatively free of violence, seems to be functioning. What is apparent is that most Iraqis want democracy, but their wishes are hostage to a sizable minority of violent recalcitrants, backed by outside force.

A more profound criticism of the war in Iraq is that it was the wrong war in the wrong place. By attacking Iraq, so it has been said, Bush diverted us from completing the vital mission of pacifying Afghanistan and tracking down Osama bin Laden.

This critique, which became another staple of Democratic argument, has the advantage of sounding tough even while opposing the war. Barack Obama revealed a new variation of the theme when, in August, he announced that he would support bombing terrorist targets in Pakistan.

But what good would it have done to have had tens of thousands more U.S. troops in Afghanistan? From the perspective of “nation building” and other humanitarian concerns, Afghanistan after the removal of the Taliban was doing well—for Afghanistan.

A thousand things were wrong, but that poor and undeveloped country was progressing better than at any other time in memory. From a strategic perspective, perhaps a larger American force could have suppressed Taliban guerrilla activity more completely, but was this a mission for which we should have tied down the lion’s share of our deployable forces?

And what of bin Laden? By all accounts, he is not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan. There is still talk of U.S. forces attacking the tribal areas where he is believed to shelter, but this would be another nettlesome project. It would entail great military risk—Pakistan’s own army has done poorly in the region—and would possibly destabilize the world’s second largest Muslim country, a country that contains both a nuclear arsenal and large numbers of extremists.

Obama’s hypothetical bombing attack would more likely result in mayhem than in the death of bin Laden.