Here is a recent post by Josh Marshall. Marshall had previously expressed his support for the war, reviewed Pollack’s book favourably, and interviewed him politely. I think Marshall is (was?) wrong about the war, but I also think his support for it was honest and intellectually serious. Now, I think he is having serious doubts about it, and I expect to see him make this more explicit over the coming days. It has always seemed to me that a good deal of the support for the war among those moderate commentators who were inclined to support the war was very soft. N. Kristoff has also turned around, fairly wholeheartedly, in a recent column. His earlier column on the topic was very wishy-washy, but he’s since made up his mind.
The main difficulty for this camp, the life-would-be-better-without-Saddam-even-though-war-is-really-awful-and-I-admit-that-this-is-messy camp, is that the costs of the invasion have gone up considerably as diplomatic efforts to build a coalition have faltered. The disastrous vote in the Turkish parliament, the growing resistance from Russia, France and Germany, and the increasingly vituperative rhetoric between long-time allies didn’t need to be part of the costs of this war, but they now are, given the diplomatic skills and habits of the Bush administration. The soft support is getting softer because the soft supporters are starting to think “how much more thoroughly could they fuck this things up”? It’s a good question.
All of this might be reversed. The soft support remaining might be enough to hold the policy aloft for long enough to get things done. But it would take a very quick war, minimal casualties, public reconciliation between allies, and a stable Iraq, among other things on a steadily growing list. The chances of this seem to me slim.
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