Gosh, you read the arguments of opponents of the Iraq war now pressing for an intervention in Libya and you can get to feeling they grasped our reasons for supporting the war (those of us who did) all along, even though they've not previously betrayed any inkling of having done so. A case in point is Ken Macdonald in today's Times (£). Because of the paywall you may not be able to read him, but let me show you what I have in mind. Libya is not Iraq, Macdonald tells us; there's no 'deceitful path'; no 'false prospectus'. Put that to one side on this occasion, as not universally agreed. There's also this, however:
And this - that we must think not of Iraq, but rather of Bosnia:[W]hat is unfolding in the desert in North Africa is full-scale military assault on liberty. Planned and executed by tyrants, it is a serious and deeply destructive war that, when it reaches the free streets of Benghazi, will surely result in a ghastly enjoyment of killing. If Gaddafi's forces reach that city, it is beyond doubt that the most appalling crimes against humanity will be committed. And when the work is complete, it will be carefully hidden away from the scrutiny of a shifty and hesitant world. The murderers will aim for impunity.
Once more in the heart of Europe we allowed men and boys to be separated from their wives and their mothers, to be bound and beaten into shallow graves with wounds in the back of their heads. Shocked at this unexpected reappearance of atrocities that we imagined had been banished for ever, we did nothing for too long until Nato finally found its courage and international justice had its chance. But everybody knows that lives were lost in the waiting...
And, further, this:
We might have hoped that our democratic leaders would have shown more courage to defy the tyrant [in Libya], that they might have grasped their chance and wielded their great power to succour and to lift his accusers. But they failed and so the rebels are in full-flung retreat, attacked from the air, their fate growing darker by the hour.
I know the differences, of course, argued over many times now: Saddam's killings on a lavish scale were behind rather than ahead of him (except for any that might have been still ahead had he been left in power). All the same, 'full-scale... assault on liberty'; '[p]lanned and executed by tyrants'; 'ghastly enjoyment of killing'; 'appalling crimes against humanity' (and these 'carefully hidden away'); 'murderers... aim[ing] for impunity'; 'atrocities that we imagined had been banished for ever'; 'we did nothing for too long'; 'lives were lost in the waiting'; might have hoped for 'more courage [from our democratic leaders] to defy the tyrant'; and 'might have grasped their chance and wielded their great power to succour and to lift his accusers'. Well, as I said before, gosh. I almost feel as if we've finally been understood by people who, up to now, have been wilfully and persistently obtuse.
Addendum at 4.05pm. Or let me put it like this. You can say 'deceitful path' or absence of an immediate humanitarian crisis until your voice is hoarse and your mouth dry, Mr Macdonald; but you just provided a whole bunch of reasons why so many who supported the Iraq war did support it.