Hitch and Sullivan: Can We Talk?

Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan have a very interesting conversation about Iraq on The Tim Russert Show.

Here is one of the highlights of their exchange:

CH: It's true that we had no idea how disastrously corroded the Iraqi state and society had become, but we have found out just how bad it was. You know, there's nothing to put a Band-aid on. There's no way to put a splint on this place. It had been looted and beggared and depraved, degenerated by being owned by a psychopathic crime family. Probably we knew it was bad, we didn't have any idea how bad. I think this strengthens the case for a regime-change, by the way, and not just paradoxically, I'm not trying to be clever. If we'd let Iraq run any longer if would have gone into a black hole, it would have imploded; and we'd have gone through the Uday-Qusay succession struggle, which would have been very pretty to watch I have no doubt, and opportunist interventions from Turkey, from Saudi Arabia, from Iran--certainly the playground of every jihadist in the world, because Saddam was already moving those people in under his own regime, notably Mr. Zarqawi. So, my worry is the whole intervention took place too late. I've always been one of those--no I can't say I've always been one of those, but I have for some time been one of those--who thought that '91 would have been the time to take down Saddam. If we're going to do a grand post mortem on where everyone went wrong, well we should start there. And I think that would be fair. That indeed is where this argument picks up--

AS: Absolutely.

CH: --who was right and who was wrong in 1991.

Hmmmm . . . who was right and who was wrong in 1991. Well, obviously Bush 41 and his administration were wrong not to remove Saddam altogether, but wasn't there a certain Senator from Massachusetts who would have preferred to leave Saddam in Kuwait and levy sanctions against him? No wonder Kerry would rather talk about 1968.