United Liberty

Written by Justin Logan, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Posted with permission from Cato @ Liberty.

Imagine a world in which the Iraq War had gone exactly as marketed. The United States invaded in March 2003. The Iraqis, with the help of Ahmed Chalabi, rapidly transitioned to become a stable, liberal democracy allied with the United States against Iran. The marvelous and smooth transformation had ripple effects throughout the region: a handful of Arab states followed suit, and the United States had drawn down to under 30,000 troops in country by September 2003, setting up a basing agreement with the new Iraqi government to stay indefinitely. Few American lives were lost, the swamp of terrorism was drained, and an oil pipeline has just been completed running from Iraq to the Israeli port city of Haifa.

Imagine, at the same time, that opponents of the war, despite having gotten every major judgment about the prudence and consequences of the war comically wrong, had been vaulted to positions of power and prestige in foreign affairs commentary. Meanwhile, the war’s proponents, despite their support for a strategy that yielded huge strategic dividends for the United States at a low cost, were banished to the wilderness, heard from sporadically on a few blogs and at a think tank or two.

It would be strange, wouldn’t it?

And yet that situation is roughly analogous to the one in which we find ourselves today, except in real life the war was an enormous disaster, just as its opponents predicted, and the proponents of the war are the ones in denial about its implications. Foremost among the salespeople for war who have yet to come to grips with the facts are the members of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board.

As Mitt Romney has moved into “presumptive nominee” status, the focus has shifted to whom he might choose to be his running mate.  The conventional wisdom states that Romney would pick someone to his right, in order to shore up support from conservatives who distrust him.  While it is still only April, the name that I see popping up the most is Senator Marco Rubio from Florida.

It’s not hard to see his appeal to the Republican base.  Rubio is a child of Cuban immigrants.  He is charismatic, smart, and attractive.  He has a beautiful family, has connections to both Protestant and Catholic churches, and speaks openly about his faith.  His positions are largely in line with the conservative base - strongly pro-life, anti-ObamaCare, and hawkish on foreign policy.

But for those of us hoping the Republican Party can take a new direction, Rubio poses a number of problems.  As Jason Pye blogged earlier this week, Rubio proudly declared that George W. Bush was a “fantastic President”.  One has to seriously question what exactly he thinks was fantastic about Bush.  Was it his wild spending and vast expansion of government in the form of Medicare Part D and No Child Left Behind?  Perhaps it was the unnecessary Iraq War which cost thousands of lives?  Or maybe it was his mistreatment of prisoners?  It’s troubling that Rubio considers these things “fantastic.”