Death of Michael Ledeen, maker of the phony case for the invasion of Iraq

There was the notion in certain (neo)conservative circles throughout the 90s that toppling Saddam really would be the trigger for a democratic wave throughout the middle east, kind of like an "Arab spring". This would benefit everyone in a kind of win-win situation: the US would have fewer enemies, and the people living there would benefit because freedom and democracy is good.

The "weapons of mass destruction" was kind of used as a pretext because they didn't believe such an argument would win popular support. It's somewhat abstract and rooted in a kind of ideology rather than pragmatism. They also genuinely believed that Saddam did have weapons of mass destructions, but just couldn't prove it. They would be found after invasion. Just a little white lie in the meanwhile.

That's really all there's to it. People get all cynical about "freedom and democracy", but that really was the goal, as a kind of "enlightened self-interest". After 9/11 this only became more acute: with the middle east part of the liberal hegemony, there would be no more Al-Qaeda (or they would be severely weakened).

Because they lied about the pretext, there was little to no broad discussion about any of this so they just operated in their ideological echo chamber. There was no one to really point out this entire notion was perhaps well-intentioned but also rather misguided and ignorant (to say nothing of the execution, which was profoundly misguided and ignorant).

This sounds to good to be true. Neoconservatives pushing for freedom, democracy, enlightened self-interest? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

No one actually thought or thinks that. It's about control of that region. All they want are figureheads that play nice with American business. That's always been the goal.

But you see, this was a bigger crime than the invasion. Because it was ideologically driven on faith, no-one was looking at the actual facts. The US military could knock over Hussein, no problem, but no-one had any plan for what happened next. No state-building, not even a plan for how the civil service was going to work. Absolutely no plan to win over hearts and minds and not create the next generation of extremists. No-one checking prisoners were treated with respect.

The Iraq invasion was wrong, but the occupation was worse.

I'm just explaining what the thought process was that lead up to the invasion.

But yes, I broadly agree with you. Although I'm somewhat sceptical you can do this kind of state-building imposed from the outside in the first place though. But if you must do it, then the way the US went about it was clearly the wrong way.

It's well documented. I'm not going to spend ages finding citations because this is a HN comment and not a scientific paper.

If you prefer to live in the psychological simplicity and safety of "neocons do evil because they're {evil,greedy,powerhungry,...}" or whatever then you're free to do so. But at that point you've also disqualified yourself from serious discussion.

They aren’t “evil” but the actions of the West in the Middle East have always been about capital despite being dressed up in the language of freedom and democracy. I would recommend the later parts of The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan for a broad overview of this dichotomy.

If I remember right, Bush ran on the idea that the US should not do nation building. So I guess he was just being true to his values? Maybe he thought Iraq would self-organize into something better.

Just another example of hubris. Then he got re-elected, which still blows my mind.

I think your scepticism is justified. Reading about Germany invasion the 1950s suggests it didn’t go massively well there. But they didn’t even try.

> I'm just explaining what the thought process was that lead up to the invasion

Are you sure you explained the thought process, or you just explained the justifications and the propaganda in support for a plan that had different purposes? Because of course if you need to convince an entire country (including its politicians and intelligentsia) to start a war, handwaving things such as "democracy", "domino effect" and spreading fears about WMDs is an obvious strategy.

> They aren’t “evil”

I'm not sure I understand this. If mass murder, propaganda, war crimes, atrocities, torture, money laundering, drug & people trafficking, etc aren't literally evil - just 'normal Western capital' stuff - then what do you call evil?

I don’t mean to come across as an apologist, what has been done and continues to happen is abhorrent. I prefer not to use terms like “good” and “evil” because they collapse so much complexity and nuance into emotionally charged terms. So when I say “they aren’t evil” I mean they didn’t commit these crimes against humanity because they’re akin to comic book villains, but rather because of ideology, humanity’s affinity for greed, etc.

The way you do it is covertly and from afar. You need the people to think they wanted their own revolution. It's what we do today and in the past across Africa. Soft-colonialism just works better.

Turns out, if you come in with guns and start making demands the people will hate you. And you need the people. The people aren't just the dudes living in a country - they are the country.

That those things are goals, and that they should be achieved through an aggressive interventionist foreign policy, are the defining pillars of neoconservatism.