Three Years Later, All is Miraculously Different in America

Eerie place, American this week. Three years ago any European visitor who dared be skeptical over Iraq had to run for cover. Even normally hospitable New Yorkers gave "surrender monkeys" a wide berth. And forget the French. One thing only redeemed visiting Britons and that was the sainted Tony Blair. As for those of us who had been to Iraq and warned that the most ghastly mistake was being made, there was no hearing. Not from liberals or conservatives. America was on a roll. Do not rain on the parade.

This week all is miraculously different - not in Iraq where it is the same only worse, but in America. Those same liberals and conservatives are coruscating in their venom against the Iraq project, every feature of which was evident within weeks of the invasion. The Democrats are now born again surrender monkeys, while even Republicans are seeking redemption or someone to blame. The neo-conservatives are ducking and running for cover. As for the British, how on Earth could we have allowed that idiot Blair to support George Bush in this reckless venture?

Britain can take no credit in this fiasco. For British troops to have become indentured mercenaries on a punitive raid in the Middle East was inexcusable and humiliating. Nor has Britain any idea how to disengage which is not "cutting and running". Like the Americans, British troops are mostly confined to barracks and in no sense a player in the lethal civil conflict in Iraq. Foreign troops no longer have any political or military leverage outside Baghdad's green zone fortress.

But I repeat, what has changed? Surely not just that American troops are getting beat. That should not affect the argument over whether this intervention was wise, or even legal. The grand inquisition into Iraq should not just be into the neo-conservative putsch that brought it about, but into the hysterical consensus of liberal opinion that lent them such invaluable support. The most frightening thing about the new world order is not American aggression but American inconstancy.