The Iraq War Question: A Suggestion to Republican Candidates

 Before saying exactly what the Democrats want to hear, Republicans might consider whether the decision itself to make war was the actual blunder.

 Peter Nichols

 Is it really wise to concede effectively that the Democrats have been right since they switched from supporting the 2002 Use of Military Force Authorization to “Bush lied, kids died”?  Do Republican candidates not thereby set up Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy argument?  The Republicans now admit that they led us into an awful blunder, the full consequences of which we are only just seeing, and yet they want another chance to conduct the nation’s foreign policy!  Are you, the American people, going to give it to them?

. . . "The proper Republican answer to the question “Would you have gone into Iraq knowing what you know now?” is yes.  Yes, because the enemy breached the terms on which hostilities were ended in the previous war, and by which his regime was allowed to continue.  Yes, because the word of the United States must mean something.  Yes, because the world, “friend and foe alike,” must know that our word means something, and because that in itself is an absolute good and necessity. " Full article.