IRAQ AND SPREADING FREEDOM

Once in a while, I still come across the claim by some wingers that the primary justification for the war in Iraq was spreading democracy. These two NRO posts should put a nail in that argument:

Not So Fast
A response to Andy McCarthy on the democracy project.

By Mark R. Levin
September 4, 2009 12:00 PM
National Review Online


The decision to invade Iraq was not motivated exclusively or even primarily by the democracy project. Indeed, the Bush administration’s case to the international community, presented over a period of months, was mostly based on national- and international-security arguments.

Andy McCarthy replied to Levin and said he agreed:

Mark's points on the George Will Fray [Andy McCarthy]

Mark is at pains to point out that democracy promotion was not the reason we went to Iraq. That has been my contention all along. I’ve respectfully disagreed with the argument, most forcefully made by the great Norman Podhoretz, that democratization was a principal aim of the war in Iraq.