The key to it all

I don't know quite how to link it, but a transcript of a New York Times editorial meeting with the secretary of state captures a key point that is almost entirely lost in Iraq:

Unidentified NYTimes reporter: I mean, I can imagine a few other countries where [the process of introducing western political culture into the Middle East outside Israel] might have started with greater ease.
SECRETARY RICE: No, but look, we were still in a state of war with Saddam Hussein.

That's pretty much the be-all and end-all of it. It's not "weapons of mass destruction" or anything else. We were at war with Iraq. It's just that we pretended we weren't for 12 years.

And of course, to say there weren't WMD's is ridiculous. There was clearly desire, and an unsustainable and failing system of "keeping Saddam in his box" as Madeleine Albright might say. If there weren't WMD's today, there would have been soon enough.

But the main thing is, we were in a state of war, yet caught in this terrible Clintonian, Annanish, George Herbert Walker Bushist state of pretending we weren't. What would Bush have done about it without Sept. 11? Who knows? But we had Sept. 11, and suddenly the nation grew some spine. Thank God for it.