Personally, I am very pleased that the Lib Dems and others have de-emphasised their opposition to the Iraq war. When the war was immediate, it made sense to stress that opposition, but today, all parties should have different concerns wrt Iraq. Delivering real economic development, democratic government, social services and personal security are more important than raking over old coals.

The lessons from the Iraq war are important and will serve us all well in the future. But as a politcal campaigning weapon, it is in the past.

There was a word against the Iraq war from Nick Clegg in his speech to conference

http://www.nickclegg.com/2008/09/the-only-party-for-a-fairer-britain-autumn-2008-conference-speech/

And we hope the people remember the culpability of the whole Labour cabinet and most of the MPs in this crime against humanity. I see no reason why this should be forgiven within a generation. Of course this should still be higher up the agenda, but Labour, the Tories, and the media want us to forget and move on.

I realise the reference to Clegg was not meant to be a recognition that we have the right policy, just a grudging mention for completeness, in what is essentially a complaint about the Labour Party.

I don’t think the anti-warmongers in the Labour Party will get anywhere, while they continue to think it is a left-right issue. It isn’t. There is nothing intrinsically doveish about the left. That Blair, Brown and the rest of the cabinet are pro-war doesn’t make them right-wing. The Labour leadership knows there is no future in lurching back to the left – they may believe in doing so, but know that they can’t trust their own instincts and values. But there is considered opposition to the war to be found across the spectrum, particularly in the Lib Dems, and this should be a clue that it is not another one of those dangerously unelectably left-wing ideas.

Charlieman: Personally, I am very pleased that the Lib Dems and others have de-emphasised their opposition to the Iraq war. When the war was immediate, it made sense to stress that opposition, but today, all parties should have different concerns wrt Iraq. Delivering real economic development, democratic government, social services and personal security are more important than raking over old coals.

I agree. It’s not really that important whether a politician thinks an event 5 years ago should have happened or not. It’s not as if they vhave a time machine and can go back and change history.

The important thing is the situation in Iraq and the middle east now, and what we do about it.

Surely the ‘war’ ends when central organised opposition is toppled.

What we are left with in Iraq is a mixed situation of continued resistance, insurgency, criminal violence and attempts to establish a peaceful order. The end of the war was not the end of the mission, and the end of the mission is never the end of the job.

Effective diplomacy and the highest standards of trading relations are now what the lunatic anti-war obsessives should campaign for, because in continuing their abstract message they just show how irrelevant and lodged in the past they are.

All I will say is that Labour and the cabinet at the time except for Michael Meacher may very well see them selves facing some sort of trial. IF the right get in I believe after a few years there will be an underground movement to see this through. It will be the very hard left heavily pushing for this as well as the right. labours involvement in the war really has put me at odds with the party, but I should stress im really at odds with the hard left many of whom have been cabinet members for hijacking Labours traditional values. If we do go down it will probably be one of the biggest election defeats ever judging by the mood of the person on the street.

If we just didn’t get involved in the war I believe we would be sailing through the next election and possibly even the next one after that. Before iraq the Cons were devastated, Iraq revitalised them. The labour plan was going so well, immigration, education, housing, womens rights, crime reform, gay and lesbian rights but then to spoil the plan was the stupid Iraq war.

I’m with the others. I’ve always held that the Iraq war is “One that should never have been authorised and should never have been waged”. But the what the consequences of that position are for the here and now isn’t obvious. It’s no good being simply “anti-war” anymore, however vigorously so: you’ve got to come up with concrete suggestions for a way out, which are practical as well as ethical. And it’s slim pickings, which may be why anti-war voices are scattered and muffled these days.

It’s never any good being ‘anti-war’ because in the end there are always circumstances which escalate to the point you have to defend what you believe in.

Conscientious objection to war is not the same thing as being a mindless pacificist – the only thing the Manchester marchers demonstrated was their own cupidity.

Amen to about 90%, brother, but let’s not get all excited over Comrade Obama. If some suicide bomber rubs out a hundred marines the day after President Obama is sworn in he’s going to bomb the shit out of whoever with the enthusiastic backing of American liberals, all of whom will be convinced that he’s fighting a “smarter” War On Terror.

Full of anti-war bluster he may be, but he’s still a contender for the American presidency and there are certain conventions that need to be maintained, i.e. massive retaliation for any slight.

Well, I think there are just wars, it’s just (pun intended) that there are a lot fewer of them than most governments think there are. World War II and Gulf War I are the obvious candidates: the world community cannot allow unprovoked invasions of sovereign states. (I appreciate this has implications for Georgia, but to be honest I don’t really understand what is and what is not a sovereign state in that part of the world).

The problem with Gulf War II was always slightly different – it was obvious from the beginning that the US – with or without the UK – could get into Baghdad, but could it get out again? There is of course the view that it didn’t really want to – George W Bush runs an oil admnistration, and oilmen can make more money these days driving up the price of futures than they can by pumping and refining.

One small useful thing the FCO could do (but won’t) would be to release the papers I’m sure it has on the pros and cons both to the Iraqis and ourselves of maintaining the territorial integrity of the country. After all, its boundaries derive from the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, an act of imperialism if ever there was one (the locals were most certainly not consulted). I suspect that they show two things – that our only interests are the oil supply and the prevention of the creation of a pro-terrorist régime, and that there is no solution which appeals equally to all Iraqis (the Kurds in particular having a different agenda to the rest of the country).

Who would that be useful to, and why?

[10] Er, to better inform the debate, I should have thought.

Charlieman: Strange that you think there is no place for character in presentation for politics. Foresight is, surely, a useful for any leader yet those who predicted the calamity to come in Iraq are apparently not meant to capitalise on this over those who backed the blunder. I would suggest that the importance of good judgement is of such immensity for those seeking office that to have offered support for such a mishap disqualifies them from

Strange also that you deem the presence of foreign military troops somehow relevant to the deliverance of ” real economic development, democratic government, social services”. I put it to you that those Iraqis attempting to rebuild their shattered infrastructure would be far more successful in their efforts if they were not smeared by the continuing association to the military presence who broke it.

@James Grieves:

Para 1: Politicians should remind people about foresight, but should not/can not afford to gloat. An aside that “I would not have created this mess” followed by “but this is how we should address it” suffices.

Para 2: I am not sure what any politician can do about that, unless you are proposing unconditional troop withdrawal.