The Independent newspaper has an editorial, which says that the current US attack on Fallujah hasn’t been very widely criticised because many people consider that it was inevitable. They are right because if one accepts the logic of this war then it is obviously necessary for the occupying army to have control over the whole country, rather than just pockets of it. And it is commonly accepted that despite the rights or wrongs of the invasion, once a country has been invaded it is right to stay and clear up the mess.
I find it hard to imagine that if the ‘coalition’ were to leave Iraq today there would be more people killed in the chaos that would follow than there will be in the battles that America will have to fight in order to carry out elections. And then once those elections have been held and the US withdraws, it seems impossible that the government that they leave will be strong enough or have enough credibility to prevent the country collapsing into civil war anyway. When Bush decided to go to war, and Blair decided to support him, the fate of these men, women and children, some probably not even born yet, was already decided; they were going to die one way or the other. And those of us living in the US or UK share the responsibility for these miserable deaths. I can’t begin to imagine the price we may have to pay for this guilt.