Russ McBee

Lawrence F. Kaplan, one of the premier neocon cheerleaders for the invasion of Iraq, has had a change of heart. He no longer considers himself a neocon, and he has had some very unflattering things to say about the Iraq invasion (which he and William Kristol pimped in a 2003 book), the handling of its aftermath, and the general bankruptcy of the neocon worldview.

This isn't the first time Kaplan has recanted his previous views, as this quote from 2006 shows:

Would more U.S. troops alter Iraq's homicidal dynamic? Not really, given that, on the question of sectarian rage, America is now largely beside the point. True, U.S. troops can be--and have been--a vital buffer between Iraq's warring sects. But they cannot reprogram their coarsened and brittle cultures. Even if America had arrived in Iraq with a detailed post-war plan, twice the number of troops, and all the counterinsurgency expertise in the world, my guess is that we would have found ourselves in exactly the same spot. The Iraqis, after all, still would have had the final say.

Some choice quotes from a current interview with Spiegel:

My sense is that the influx of 30,000 new American forces holds the least explanatory power [for the decrease in violence since the surge began]. Most important were the tribes. And their switching sides predates the surge.

After the invasion, Kaplan spent two years in Iraq trying to understand the country whose invasion he'd advocated so stridently. Safely ensconced in his ivory tower here, Iraq was nothing more than an abstraction to him in 2003. Once he traveled there and realized that the situation was infinitely more complex than he and his co-conspirators had realized, it finally dawned on him that American exceptionalism might just have some limits:

So I decided to [go to Iraq and] cover the war and had some very vivid experiences in the process that really altered my thinking. Before the war Iraq was an abstraction, an idea. Once you have seen the place you can't help but be much more cautious with the ideas that you put on the table.

It's too bad he and the other neocon criminals didn't have the common sense to realize that six years ago.

He's also finally come around to adopt one of the dominant anti-war arguments which has held since the beginning, and which becomes more starkly outlined with every passing day:

I also think that the Iraq experience has set back the cause of idealism in American foreign policy and the willingness of Western countries to intervene for humanitarian reasons. Take Darfur: I think it's because of Iraq that nobody wants to intervene there. So on the whole the effects have been huge and overwhelmingly negative. I don't see anything good that's come from this war, I'm afraid.

At least he finally accepts what those treasonous liberals have been saying since 2002.

Kaplan was asked this question: "So for the record: Was the Iraq war a mistake?" His response: "Yes. Knowing what we know today, definitely. I know this is political poison in some quarters, but respect to reality demands this answer." Wow. Now he's even reality-based!

This being 2008 and all, here's the money quote:

The near term argument here is that if John McCain wins the presidential election, neoconservatism will have been vindicated. Because by voting him into office, people will have tacitly given their endorsement to that sort of foreign policy. His advisers are the very people we are arguing about.

Consider that statement very carefully before voting this fall.