Where Have All the Warbloggers Gone?

It's been irking me for some time that many of the self-described libertarians who pounded the drums of war as loud as anyone two years ago are suspiciously silent now.  Nothing about Iraq from many of the libertarian hawks (I'll post more on this next.)

In order to hopefully bring their "innovative" thinking back into the mix, I offer several questions for self-described libertarian hawks to ponder and/or answer in light of the emerging reality in Iraq:

1) The Iraq war has cost nearly $200 billion and 1,100 U.S. lives thus far.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 Iraqis have been killed by the U.S. government.  What are the prospects right now for Iraq becoming the shining light of democracy in the Middle East?  Do we now believe that something as despotic (but stable) as Hosni Mubarak's Egypt or Khameini's Iran would be acceptable?  Is democracy in name only, a la Afghanistan, acceptable?  What is acceptable?

2) If Iraq emerges as something acceptable, will its existence be enough to precipitate region-wide change in the Middle East, or will we have to regime change another couple of countries?  How will we know?  If we'll need a few more, which ones?  How much will they cost?  How much is it worth?  Which countries would join a new "coalition of the willing?"  What is the likelihood of success?

3) How will we know when to leave?  It seems implausible that the insurgents in Iraq will fight to the last man, and once he's killed, our work will be done.  It seems highly more likely, by the hawks' own logic, that these people want to wait it out until we leave, and then make their play for power.  So when will we leave?  What are the benchmarks for determining when it's okay for us to go?  What tools does the Allawi government (or whatever government) need to have in order for us to start leaving?  140,000 well-trained, well-equipped, smart U.S. troops have been unable to do much other than chase the insurgents around the country.  Why should we believe that the Iraqi forces can do better?  Because they'll be more ruthless than we are?  I thought we wanted to implant liberalism, not indiscriminate violence.  Will the transformative power of freedom and democracy make the insurgents drop their arms and surrender, or will it give the Iraqi forces superhuman powers with which they can defeat the insurgents?

4) If Iran goes nuclear, which seems increasingly likely, how will the newly minted Iraqi government respond?  Will we allow it to develop nuclear weapons as a balancer?  If not, who will protect it from incursions by Iran backed by a nuclear deterrent?

5) Is there any scenario under which we would determine that the cost of trying to remake Iraq is greater than the benefit?  Any but the stupidest of al Qaeda cells could operate (and may in fact be operating) in Iraq right now quite easily.  Besides that, large garrisons of infantry troops and armored units seem like an inappropriate weapon for confronting a civilian-looking group like al Qaeda.  So is there a scenario under which the hawks believe that we should jettison our nation-building project there, or will we "pay any price?"

I've got more where these came from, but I'd like very much to see sensible, let alone libertarian, answers to these questions from the all-but-defunct libertarian hawk bloggers.

Comments

[Kevin B. O'Reilly]

I look forward to a flood of on-point, well thought out responses. But hey, who thought the Red Sox would win the World Series? Anything can happen!