Novak & Weigel: Two prominent Catholic supporters of military intervention a decade ago outline their stances on intervention, then and now.

Novak and Weigel Discuss

 Iraq 2003 and Syria 2013 (1960)

by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND

When President Obama addressed the nation on Sept. 10 to explain his response to a reported chemical-weapons attack in Syria, he vowed not to repeat the mistakes made by his predecessor, George W. Bush, who has been vilified for approving the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which is still mired in political violence a decade afterwards.

Thus the president defended his new two-track Syria policy — which includes an agreement to place President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons under international control — and a backup plan for a “narrow” military strike to deter future use of chemical weapons as evidence of his prudent style of leadership. His remarks sought to tamp down public skepticism by insisting that the intelligence on Assad’s alleged sarin-gas attack was credible and that a modest mission, with no “boots on the ground,” would keep the U.S. out of another foreign war.

But the influential Catholics who once supported Bush’s policy a decade ago possess a different view of that fateful decision to invade Iraq.

Public intellectuals like George Weigel, who has written extensively on the moral and prudential principles guiding the conduct of war, still defend the broader mission of Bush’s policy in Iraq, while critiquing Obama’s present policy on Syria.

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