A Time For Shilling

Jennifer Rubin at Commentary:

Senior Brookings fellows Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack gave a report today and entertained questions at a Brookings briefing on Iraq. It was the single most illuminating presentation I have witnessed on the status of Iraq and the potential way forward. Neither man can be accused of shilling for either the administration or John McCain for numerous reasons: both have been strong critics of the war and O’Hanlon opposed the war and still believes on balance it has not made us safer.

Bzzzzt!

Michael O’Hanlon 2/5/03:

A Time For War

In his State of the Union address last week, President Bush was unpersuasive in his claims of Iraqi progress towards a nuclear weapon and of supposedly significant ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Yet, the president was still convincing on his central point that the time for war is near. Even those of us who have questioned the case for war over the last year, and who do not buy all of the Bush administration’s arguments for invasion even today, need to face the fact that there soon will be no other plausible option.

In taking this basic approach, Mr. Bush heeded the counsel of multilateralists, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, the elder President Bush, Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Tony Blair and many Democrats. It is now time for multilateralists to support the president.

The multilateralist approach to Iraq was the right way to go. Otherwise, any U.S. invasion of Iraq, however justified and however desirable for the people of Iraq, could have had huge consequences.

As for Ken Pollack:

They are both Very Serious People.