Hitchens:"busted up and screwed up Iraq was in our future no matter what"

http://www.aina.org/news/2006019114515.htm

Christopher Hitchens On Why We Must Win

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Q: What's the biggest misconception, or myth or fallacy Americans have about what is going in Iraq?

A: The biggest mistake most Americans make is to think our engagement with Iraq began in 2003, and that we had the option of not doing anything there and presumably should have exercised that option. The beginning of wisdom is the realization of responsibility. We've inherited responsibility for Iraq starting at least from the moment when Jimmy Carter encouraged Saddam Hussein to attack Iran, but perhaps earlier than that in the '60s when the CIA most certainly did help Saddam's wing of the Baath Party to come to power. So we can't walk away.... We have to accept that a busted up and screwed up Iraq was in our future no matter what. The reason I support the president is that he in some sense seems to realize that. He couldn't do what Clinton had done and just push it on into the next administration.

Q: Does that mean you are of the "We broke it, but we broke it a long time ago school and now we've got to fix it?"

A: When I first heard the Pottery Barn analogy put -- I think by that great stateswoman Maureen Dowd -- I thought how irritating and how trivial. But then I thought, "You know what, by accident, she's got it right." Because, OK, "You break it, you own it," can be rephrased. It was broken and we did own it. And so everything has to start with that recognition....

The main criticism that the neocons have, and I take more or less their line on this, is that all of this should have been taken care of in 1991. They should not have let Saddam Hussein survive his conquest of Kuwait and his defeat there. He should have gone down then and we should never have tortured the Iraqi people with sanctions for 12 years.