projecting better nature vs. projecting power

Tim Burke has started an excellent debate on the intellectual origins of the war in Iraq. It begins with a focus on a piece by a liberal defender of the US attack and continues with a set of comments unusual for its seriousness and lack of shrill. The piece is Ignatieff.

Do read the comments through to the very bottom. Here's a tease from two of them: (1) From an American left-liberal:

There was no justification for this fiasco, this debacle, this destruction, this mass murder. If we cannot project our better nature, we cannot 'win' in any sense. If we rely on the projection of power, then Viet Nam and Iraq will be our epitaph, as well as epithet.

(2) From an American war supporter:

We knew and know perfectly well that Ba’athism is a secular, fascist ideology. Also that it is perfectly easy for fascists to cooperate with Islamists when it suits their interests. Also that the entire Mideast is rife with support for terrorism, but the prudential choice was not to invade everywhere at once. And that to say that Iraq was not directly involved with 9-11 is a very different thing from saying it had no connection with terror, or would not in the future. And a thousand other things, all of which lead me to have no regrets about the decision to invade Iraq, and lead me to resolve to support the post-invasion struggle with all my might.