Reasons for Hope in Iraq

With all that's gone wrong in Iraq, critics of the war can take a certain grim satisfaction in being vindicated. Why on earth didn't President Bush listen to their warnings, which now appear eerily prescient? Just recall what antiwar advocates said....

Senator Kerry: "I do not believe our nation is prepared for war....If we do go to war, for years people will ask why Congress gave in. They will ask why there was such a rush to so much death and destruction when it did not have to happen."

Columnist Robert Novak: "It is probable that after Bush orders the first shot fired, anything that looks American throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe could come into the crosshairs of a rifle sight or be blown up by a car bomb."

Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski: "The United States is likely to become estranged from many of its European allies... We should only go to war if the international community as a whole is prepared to go to war."

Senator Kennedy: "It'll be brutal and ugly. The 45,000 body bags the Pentagon has sent to the region are all the evidence we need of the high price in lives and blood that we will have to [bear]."

President Carter: "The devastating consequences will be [felt]...for decades to come, in economic and political destabilization of the Middle East region."

Political scientist John Mueller: "The Iraqis - or significant numbers of them - might refuse to break, and develop instead a Masada or Alamo complex....The Iraqis might, for ex ample, be able to sustain a Tet-like house-to-house battle....If something like that comes about, American losses will become intolerable and public support for the war - Bush's war, it will surely be called - will swiftly erode."

Actually there's a perfectly good reason why President George H.W. Bush didn't listen to these Cassandras: They were wrong. You see, all these gloomy predictions weren't made prior to the Second Gulf War of 2003. They were made before the First Gulf War of 1991.

I stumbled upon most of these quotes in a May 1991 Commentary article by Joshua Muravchik. The rest come from other contemporary sources. They serve as a timely reminder that many critics of the current conflict had no special insights into the dangers American troops would face. They've been predicting disaster in virtually identical terms every time America has deployed forces anywhere since Vietnam. One could dredge up equally apocalyptic predictions about interventions in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, Afghanistan: All were supposed to be the "next Vietnam."

The president's opponents, with perfect hindsight, now want him to apologize for his failure to foresee everything that would go wrong in Iraq. There is no question he made plenty of mistakes, some of them foreseeable. But what about the naysayers? When will they apologize for everything they've gotten wrong over the years?

They might argue that the consequences of their errors are not as grave as the president's. After all, they wanted to keep American troops out of harm's way, whereas Bush has gotten more than 1,000 killed in Iraq. What they forget are the consequences of inaction. If America had relied on economic sanctions in response to Saddam's aggression in 1990 - as so many doves, including Senator Kerry, wanted - today Kuwait would be the 19th province of Iraq, Saudi Arabia might be the 20th, and a genocidal dictator with nuclear weapons would dominate the world's oil supplies.

We have no way of knowing what would have happened if America hadn't invaded Iraq last year, but the Duelfer Report suggests that sanctions were falling apart and that Saddam was plotting to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction. The consequences of inaction will, thankfully, remain in the realm of speculation. The costs of action, by contrast, are all too clear: We see the bombings and beheadings on television every day.

The daily drumbeat of terrible tidings appears to lend credence to the critics who foresaw disaster. Maybe, like a stopped clock that's right twice a day, their predictions have finally come true. Maybe. The occupation of Iraq has definitely proven more difficult than its architects anticipated. America could even lose.

But victory is not out of reach yet. Recent events - America and Iraqi forces going on the offensive, Moqtada al Sadr's apparent decision to enter the political process, the reelection in Australia of a staunch supporter of the war effort - give fresh reasons for hope. If we hang in there, America can still prove the naysayers wrong. Again.

Mr. Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.