Monday marked the twentieth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The American Conservative marked the dismal occasion with an appropriate mix of sober self-reflection and “I told you so.” There are too many pieces in our Iraq series to feature them all here, and I encourage you to go back through the site and read them all, but here are three initial recommendations.
Daniel McCarthy contributed to our “right from the beginning” theme, arguing that the paleoconservatives were right about the invasion in 2003 because they were right about liberalism. McCarthy responds specifically to David Frum’s now infamous “Unpatriotic Conservatives” piece of two decades ago for National Review, in which he questioned the national loyalty of those who questioned the prudence of the Bush administration’s policies. The paleos, McCarthy writes, “do not believe that with smart enough and virtuous enough liberals in charge, Washington will do the right thing and do it well—because the philosophical keystone of the entire edifice is unsound.”

Political theorist Joshua Mitchell gave us an essay in the sober self-reflection vein. Mitchell served as acting chancellor of the American University of Iraq–Sulaimani from 2008 to 2010. In certain respects, he argues, despite the hellish violence Iraq has experienced since the invasion, the country is in better spiritual shape than the United States and the broader West today. Mitchell warns that an egalitarian and democratic America at war with its own past and the idea of national sovereignty has forgotten the aristocratic virtues that still rule a world of nations, and so is set to continue to fail on the world stage.

And lest you worry we have forgotten the war in Ukraine in all this looking backwards, let me recommend Tim Andrews’s report on the Zelensky regime’s standoff with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Andrews concludes, “Unless we act now and ensure our tax dollars are not used to pay for religious persecution, next week Kiev will be filled with videos of loyal Ukrainians being arrested, or worse, simply for wanting the right to pray according to their consciences. What better propaganda videos for Putin will there be than that?”

Best,

Micah Meadowcroft
Web Editor

P.S. Join fellow TAC readers along with our executive director, Emile Doak, and founding editor, Scott McConnell, at an exclusive dinner on April 1st in Indianapolis during the Spring meeting of the Philadelphia Society! You can learn more and register here.

Trad Catholics and True Obedience

Michael Warren Davis