Against Revisionism

This is a really good piece, and I think the punchline is particularly important:

That the nukes we went in to eliminate did not, in fact, exist is scandal of monumental proportions. It’s not a reason to start pretending that the Army can do the impossible if only we keep it deployed abroad long enough.

Indeed. And this has always been a fundamental problem with the arguments of pro-war liberals (or fake libertarians): not only did Bush not go to war with the primary goals these people attributed to him, but there’s no reason to think that American military force could just will a stable liberal democracy into existence in Iraq even if this was their only goal (and even if the administration was more competent.)