I admit that Saddam Hussein was a son of a bitch who treated his own people terribly and was no friend to his neighbors. There might be a few Iraqis who lost their privileged positions after the American invasion who miss the days of Saddam, but most Iraqis didn’t have any love for him and wouldn’t want to see him back in power. However, every Iraqi who lost a loved one or who was ruined financially or who was forced out of their home or into exile has to have some pretty mixed feelings. Women who lost the freedom to dress casually or to feel secure going out alone or to college or a job, have to feel ambivalent. The Sunnis in Iraq are upset that the Shi’a are now in charge of the country, breaking a streak of half a millennium. Christians saw their businesses shut down and their communities destroyed. And, naturally, if you were one of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who are now dead as a result of the invasion and ensuing chaos, you definitely are not better off.
These are the reasons I find the title of Mitt Romney’s new book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness to be so grating. We didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction and we ruined countless lives. Sure, the future for Iraq might be brighter than it would have been otherwise (maybe) but at what cost? Why not apologize? Shouldn’t we apologize for Abu Ghraib? Have you seen the spike in birth defects in Fallujah?
I don’t know anyone who thinks well of people who refuse to apologize, so why would we think any different standard should apply to countries. What is Romney arguing? The United States makes mistakes. Sometimes we make really, really big mistakes that get hundreds of thousands of people killed. It might be painful to say we’re sorry for these things, but it certainly doesn’t hurt us to do it.
American leadership has been incredibly important in the post-war years, but it only works with the consent of the international community in the context of an international system. Great power breeds envy and resentment even in the best of times. A colossus that makes huge blunders and never apologizes is not making a case for greatness, or even for a continuation of its power.
