A LITTLE HISTORICAL RECORD

From the same Globe & Mail column I cited below, I learn that two well-known liberals also supported the invasion:

The Iraq issue has divided the American left between those who believe that the U.S. military should not invade foreign nations and those who believe the United States has been guilty of failing to intervene to prevent atrocities - including those of Iraq's Baathist regime (which the United States once helped to support and arm) - in the past.


Intervention's most articulate voice has come from Michael Ignatieff, the writer and scholar at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, whose essays in The New York Times Magazine have spelled out the clearest left-leaning argument for an invasion. His view has become the hinge of many debates on the subject, and attracted angry accusations from his former allies.

"I'm cautiously in favour of a military operation on humanitarian grounds against Saddam Hussein under certain circumstances," Mr. Ignatieff says. "You have to ask yourself: Would the Iraqis be better off under Saddam Hussein than they would under something else?

"American internationalism is in the balance here. It's not just a question of whether the Iraq action will be decisive, but will they stay the course and prevent civil war and an orgy of revenge killing? The question is, what is the middle-term effect of an American imperial occupation in Iraq? The benefits could be huge, it could create a real opening for the people of Iraq. . . .

"I think we stand to lose a lot more now by not invading."

Most of the left's pro-war arguments revolve around the notion that an invasion would serve the principles of human rights, equality and democracy by bringing humanitarian attention to a neglected region.

"No matter how badly we bungle a post-Saddam rebuilding of Iraq - and Bush's record in Afghanistan, alas, suggests little reason for optimism - it is difficult to imagine that deposing Saddam will not greatly improve the living conditions and human rights of the Iraqi people," says Jonathan Chait, a left-leaning writer with the New Republic whose essays have been influential in the liberal pro-war camp.

Mr. Chait and other leftists also make the case for solidarity: All of the exiled Iraqi organizations, including those that opposed the sanctions of the 1990s, support a war to overthrow Mr. Hussein.