Then there are those who take the fatalist's cop-out: Civil wars have no
good guys and bad guys. They're just dogfights, and we should stay out of
them and see who comes out on top. But that's also confusing, because not
only is it not true, but liberals have been saying the opposite for
generations. They cheered for the Reds against the Whites in the Russian
civil war, for the Communists against the Fascists in the Spanish civil war,
and for the victims of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia and Sudan. Surely
liberals believe there was a good side and a bad side in the American Civil
War?
Ah, but I'm missing the point, they might say. It's not that there aren't
good guys and bad guys, it's that we can't do anything about it and
therefore it's not in our interests to try. Then they point to, say, the
civil wars in Lebanon or, closer to their hearts, Vietnam.
Let's stipulate Vietnam was a civil war. So what? There were certainly good
guys and bad guys, and let the record show the bad guys won, which was not
in our interests. This in turn led to many humanitarian calamities. And,
recall, another superpower intervened in that civil war, and it worked out
pretty well for the Soviets.
More to the point, it's ludicrous to believe America has no interest in who
wins or loses various civil wars, including Iraq's. The 20th century would
have been a lot more pleasant if the Bolsheviks had lost the Russian civil
war, and the 21st will be a lot more ugly if Sunni Salafists or Iranian
pawns win in Iraq.
I'm not saying a civil war is a desirable environment for anybody. But nor
is it a geopolitical black box absolving all concerned from moral and
strategic discrimination. And yet that is exactly what advocates for
withdrawal from Iraq want everyone to believe, but only when it comes to
Iraq.