"The Liberal Case for War"?

A lot of leftists and liberals support the war in Iraq, and many of them are people I respect. Still, even the New Republic, which supports the war, wonders if the liberal hawks have been duped. I believe that they have, and I find the "liberal case for war" increasingly hard to swallow.

Paul Berman's argument in Slate is typical of the pro-war left-liberals:

I do not favor an invasion of Iraq solely for the purpose of disarming the regime. If disarmament is the goal, there is no reason we shouldn't keep up a pressure short of invasion. I would favor an invasion for a larger purpose, though, which is this: to begin a roll-back of the several tendencies and political movements that add up to Muslim totalitarianism. I would favor an invasion whose purpose was to foment a liberal revolution in the Middle East.

In all fairness, Berman goes on to complain that Bush hasn't made the case for this "liberal revolution," which is certainly true. But I would go farther. From what we've heard, Bush is not willing to make any commitment towards the rebuilding of Iraq. The plan is to go in, overthrow Saddam, and get out ASAP. There's been some talk about a long-term occupation and developing democratic institutions, but there's a lot of flip-flopping on these issues. And considering administration policy in Afghanistan, can we really assume the best?

Even if Iraq gets a stable democratic government -- and everything I've heard suggests this is unlikely -- it's wishful thinking to assume this will spark a "democratic revolution" in the Middle East. Hell, even the Japanese occupation -- the liberal success story of American conquest -- didn't inspire a democratic revolution in East Asia. (Almost all other nations in East Asia were dictatorships up until the late 80s.) And in this case, we're talking about an supposedly-idealistic crusade that was originally hatched for Benjamin Netanyahu as an alternative to the Oslo accords. If that doesn't discredit it in Arab world, nothing will.

Believe me, I would love to see democracy in the Middle East, but I see little reason to think an invasion of Iraq would help foster it. So in my opinion, the "liberal case for war" is unconvincing.