Liberal hawks learned nothing from Iraq, and their attacks on DeSantis show it
Timothy P. Carney
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Jonathan Chait was among a cadre of liberals who vociferously and consistently supported George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. Twenty years later, he is making it clear that he wants the next president to be hawkish against Russia, a nuclear-armed superpower.
To this end, Chait is rolling out the same sort of bad arguments that Iraq hawks used 20 years ago, beginning with the accusation that if you express concern about the costs of United States intervention, the potential for blowback, or the dangers of regime change, you are a fan of the evil dictator.
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Those of us who publicly opposed the Iraq War 20 years ago were called terrorist sympathizers, Saddam supporters, and unpatriotic. Chait relies on that form of argument twice in his latest attack on Ron DeSantis.
First is the headline: “Ron DeSantis Thrills Tucker Carlson by Taking Pro-Russian Stance.”
The specific DeSantis statement Chait suggests is pro-Russia is this one: “The U.S. should not require assistance that could require the deployment of U.S. troops or enable Ukraine to engage in offensive operations beyond its border. … These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers … That risk is unacceptable.”
Calling escalation to the point of hot war with Russia an “unacceptable risk” is a debatable view. I agree with DeSantis. Chait, as 20-plus years has made clear, is less bothered by U.S. involvement in wars, and so his risk tolerance is evidently higher. But it’s facile and dumb to say that strong aversion to a U.S.-Russia war is a pro-Putin position.
The second time Chait deploys the “for war or for the bad guy” argument technique regards — and I am not joking — regime-change wars. DeSantis knows that regime-change wars are a bad idea. This is not a novel idea. It’s pretty obvious that deposing Hussein and deposing Moammar Gadhafi did not improve things in Iraq or in Libya.
Yet when DeSantis rightly argues that regime-change war would be bad, Chait sums it up this way: “DeSantis is so convinced Putin is the best possible leader for Russia.”
DeSantis actually wrote that regime change “would neither stop the death and destruction of the war nor produce a pro-American, Madisonian constitutionalist in the Kremlin. History indicates that Putin’s successor, in this hypothetical, would likely be even more ruthless. The costs to achieve such a dubious outcome could become astronomical.”
DeSantis is echoing the Founders, who wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
DeSantis is right about this, and Chait effectively has no retort. So he does what the laziest hawks did in 2002 and calls anyone who disagrees with him a dictator-lover.
This line of attack is a familiar one to anyone who witnessed the Iraq War debate. Let us pray that this time, the name-calling hawks don’t win again.