Christopher Hitchens explains in great detail why Hillary Clinton will have a tough time backing away from her longstanding position in favor of war with Iraq. The crux of the case:
After speaking to the U.N. General Assembly meeting of 2006, President Jalal Talabani of Iraq found himself in a room with President Bush and former President Clinton. He embraced them both. “Thank you,” he said to Clinton, “for signing the law that called for the liberation of Iraq. And thank you, Mr. Bush, for being the one to implement it.”
[…]
At stake, then, is not just the credibility of an ambitious New York senator who wants to be the next President Clinton. At stake, rather, is the integrity of the last President Clinton and of those in his administration who concluded that coexistence with Saddam Hussein was neither desirable nor possible.
Quite right. That doesn’t preclude her arguing that the war could have been prosecuted with more competence or that, were she president, she would have done so. But it does rather mitigate against her banging the “Bush Lied” drum too loudly.
