Drezner et al.

What the hell, since everyone else is chiming in on this, I might as well too. (updated below)

I really don't understand Dan's point here:

A plain truth needs to be said: if, in the fall of 2002, O'Hanlon, Pollack, and the entire Brookings staff had marched on the White House and then immolated themselves in protest over the possibility of going to war in Iraq, it would not have made the slightest bit of difference in halting the war. This goes double if the AEI or Heritage staffers had done it.

In the fall of 2002, you had the following political situation:

a) A president with a 70% approval rating;

b) A Republican-controlled House and a Senate that was barely controlled by the Dems;

c) A Democraic Party that was haunted by what had happened to Senators who voted against the 1991 Gulf War (two words: Sam Nunn);

d) A military that had made its recent wars (Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Gulf War I) seem quick and merciful;

e) A sanctions coalition in Iraq that seemed to be fraying;

f) Fresh scars from the 9/11 attacks;

g) An adversary that elicited little sympathy from anyone -- especially the American people.

The moment George W. Bush decided he wanted to oust Saddam Hussein, the debate was effectively over.

First, do any of these factors make publicly cheering on the Iraq invasion any less egregious, especially if you're a so-called Foreign Policy Expert at a branded think tank? I don't think so. Being right on big stuff like war matters. Taking a public stand matters. And if you make the wrong call, you've got to own it. You don't get to say, "Well, the President was popular, so my being totally wrong didn't matter anyway."

Plenty of people saw these factors in the fall of 2002 as well: a trigger-happy President with a grudge and a foreign policy staff filled with neocons, wildly overblown rhetoric meant to scare the American people, no connection between Saddam and 9/11, no imminent threat from Saddam, no freaking clue what happens after he's gone, the moral problem of starting wars for the hell of it.

Now I don't know why the people at Brookings didn't see all that, but it really wasn't hard.

And by the way, does Drezner really believe that if the Senate shot down the Iraq War Resolution -- perhaps a few of them would've been swayed by Serious Experts warning it would be a huge freaking mistake -- there would have been a war?

UPDATE

Drezner responds here.

b) Do you believe that the "foreign policy community" enabled the Iraq War? Given the political facts of life in the fall of 2002, do you really think that think tank protests would have derailed the war? Is a failure to oppose Iraq the same thing as cheerleading the invasion?

In response to InstaPutz, this difference matters. It is one thing to chastise an analyst for getting his or her analysis of invading Iraq wrong. It is an entirely different (and, yes, more egregious) thing to accuse them of "taking us to war" or "has nontrivial responsibility for the hundreds of thousands dead."

Drezner's arguing that the foreign policy community had no role at all in the run up to the Iraq War. Hmmm. So what's the point of them at all then? Either they have an influence on public policy or they don't. If they have an influence, then what was it?

I'm guessing that tomes like The Case for Invading Iraq moved the needle. How much it moved the needle is debatable. But it moved.

Drezner adds, in comments:

The Sam Nunn reference, explained: in 2002, there were enough Democratic Senators with aspirations to the presidency who remembered what happened to Nunn when he decided to oppose the 1991 Gulf War resolution. He went from being the frontrunner for the 1992 nomination to an elder statesman awfully fast. That's the parable that I suspect was fresh in the minds of most Senators when thinking about Iraq in 2002.

Yep. No doubt.

Look, obviously the elected officials who authorized the war are principally responsible for it. But what's galling is that the O'Hanlons and Pollacks of the world (1) now glibly wash their hands of the role they played and (2) are still considered Very Serious Experts, even though they were wrong about pretty much everything.

You shouldn't get a mulligan after Iraq. And you really, really shouldn't be writing well-promoted op-eds about how awesome The Surge is going.