NeoConservatism: Why We Need It by Douglas Murray

Author:Douglas Murray [Murray, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9781594031472
Amazon: 1594031479
Goodreads: 770272
Publisher: Encounter Books
Published: 2006-07-19T22:00:00+00:00

THE IRAQ WAR

It is possible that the war in Iraq will be the last major intervention of its kind for some years. There is little stomach for any further such intervention (for instance, in Iran or Syria). For this reason, among others, it is still possible that many people will persist in regarding our objective in Iraq as having failed. It is worth explaining frankly why the war was necessary, and why it remains right.

It is a fact of life that in politics there is a difference between what one would like to do and what one can do. In an ideal society, the government is restrained but not shackled, and there is a relationship of trust between the people and government that permits the government, on occasion, to take decisions that may be unpopular and occasionally inexplicable to the public. The Iraq conflict was just such a conflict. As Kristol and Kagan discuss in their contribution to Present Dangers, it was spurred by reasons either too numerous or too opaque for large proportions of the western, and especially the European, populations to go along with.

What occurred over Iraq - and in particular over the issue of WMD - was certainly not, as the neocon-bashers have tried to label it, a 'noble lie'. This accusation has, for some time, been the calumny of choice for discerning critics. Yet the accusation is ignorant. The notion of the 'noble lie' certainly arises in Plato, and it is true that Strauss and many neoconservatives admire Plato. But what Plato described (in his Republic) was that, on occasion, leaders have to conceal truths from the masses in order to lead them most wisely. He certainly did not (as one commentator put it with wild hyperbole) claim that 'it is practically a duty to lie to the masses'.[280] Still less did Strauss, or his most direct pupils, believe any such thing. Plato described how, in matters of grave importance, occasions arise in which a leader will know best, and in which the less well informed masses, if given the opportunity to decide on a specific matter, might decide wrongly. There are very few who 1 would disagree with this, and the profession of outrage at the very notion of the 'noble lie' is, to put it kindly, an example of faked outrage.

But the allegation that neocons, or anyone else in either the UK or US administrations, told a 'noble lie' over Iraq to achieve their goals is not merely (as the Economist put it) 'stretching it':[281] it is glib and offensive nonsense. And it is nonsense not merely because those who have peddled the line (such as Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the Guardian[282]) have misrepresented their Plato, and not read their Strauss. It is not even nonsense simply because the accusation is a further blithe attempt by members of the press to claim that prominent politicians are liars. No, it is wrong because, far from concealing anything from their people, the governments of the US and the UK told their people everything they knew.

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