A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq
Christopher Hitchens

review by: David Brown
Date: 8/1/03

Last night I was sitting in my parents’ living room watching Tom Brokaw deliver the evening’s headlines. The top story was a warning issued about possible plans for another airplane hijacking this summer, perhaps targeting the Eastern US. My flight home to DC was scheduled to leave in less than 24 hours. This was not what I wanted to hear.

Aren’t we supposed to be safer now that Saddam Hussein is on the lam? Suddenly the war in Iraq is looking like a big waste of time.

So why did we do it? Read A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq, by Christopher Hitchens, and you’ll get an idea. Apparently it had something to do with a brutal dictator violating UN rules. Who knew?

Most of the essays contained in this slender volume appeared originally on Slate.com and were written leading up to the US invasion. Some post-war perspective has been added, although it’s unlikely we’ll truly be able to use that term until the last American soldier is on a flight home. Good luck trying to squeeze Rumsy and Wolfie for any hint of a clue as to when that might be.

Hitchens is a brilliant writer, a knowledgeable historian, and a certified crank. He is a self-proclaimed contrarian who enjoys nothing better than to shove a distasteful opinion in your mouth, force you to chew, swallow, and admit that it was a delicious and satisfying meal. His intelligent wit and well-crafted prose allow him to accomplish this time and again while defending our insipid President and his dubious foreign policy.

Much of Hitchens’ argument draws from his time spent with Iraq’s disenfranchised Kurdish population. He has seen the result of Hussein’s despotic rein firsthand, and it pointed his moral compass squarely toward regime change. Saddam’s tyrannical rule and continued violation of UN orders is enough to warrant intervention in Hitchens’ mind.

So why must the US play the part of policeman? Apparently because the portion of the European community that opposes us are composed of hypocrites and opportunists worthy of our scorn rather than our cooperation. Hitchens tears down the Turks to great effect and offers little in defense of what have become the indefensible French.

But Hitchens saves his most derisive tone to torch the American peace movement as he attacks their “self-satisfied isolationism …which seems to desire mainly a quiet life for Americans.” Accusing peaceniks of shielding themselves from reality, he alludes to the forever-changed world post 9/11: “The option of that quiet life disappeared a while back.”

For all his effective arguments, not even Hitchens can defend the Bush Administration’s desperate attempt to sell the world on Saddam’s WMD program. In fact he saw no need for Bush to prove the existence of WMD’s in Iraq in the first place; intervention was already justified. In Hitchens’ view, Bush only weakened his case by relying on shaky intelligence and sexed-up dossiers.

And so we are left with the enduring legacy of this war. It was marketed with phony claims, like a used car. Post-war difference of opinion depends on whether or not you believe in the finished product regardless of how phony the claims were. Hitchens thinks we were sold a certified, pre-owned Mercedes. It’s a great car with a great pedigree – you don’t need to tell us it can fly and do our dry cleaning. Me, I’d love to have a Mercedes. But I still need to get on that airplane to get home.