Follow us on social

Setting the record straight on the teeming media swamp that supported Iraq

Setting the record straight on the teeming media swamp that supported Iraq

Join us Wednesday for a special event. It's not about re-litigating but putting the press in its proper place, lest we get caught again.

Analysis | North America

In his doubling down of support for the war in Iraq, David “Axis of Evil” Frum all but exonerates the architects and promoters of the war (which would include himself, being a speechwriter for President Bush until 2002, then a media cheerleader) as such:

To my mind, the most important lessons regard government decision making, offering a warning against groupthink and self-deception. Crucial decision makers started with an assumption that regime change in Iraq would be cheap, easy, and lightly contested. They then isolated themselves from all contrary information—until it was too late.

Frum, like his contemporary Eli Lake, is an interesting case because each has in the last few weeks attempted to both acknowledge the conventional wisdom after 20 years that the war was a failure, while still arguing best intentions and look, “Iraq really is better off without Saddam Hussein." On the latter, I will let my colleague Connor Echols’ heartbreakin interviews with actual Iraqis answer that. What I’m keen to explore is Frum’s assertion that: “I don’t believe any leaders of the time intended to be dishonest. They were shocked and dazed by 9/11. They deluded themselves.”

It is highly doubtful that Frum vulcan mind-melded with each of the architects, or saw into their souls a la Bush and Vladimir Putin. We know from highly documented accounts that, contra Frum’s simplistic summation, the Bush administration was influenced by a vanguard of well-placed neoconservatives who had set regime change into motion back in the Clinton administration. This was no 9/11 hangover. As Jim Lobe pointed out in these pages in 2021, the 2001 attacks enabled leaders and operators like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Scooter Libby, Robert Kagan, and Bill Kristol to have the war they wanted long before those planes flew into the Twin Towers.

Frum’s flimsy rationalization conveniently ignores that the mainstream media was totally and willingly co-opted into this “delusion” too, and without it, the invasion and aftermath, which included eight years of occupation and then another two years of military assistance to help the Iraqis roust ISIS (which the U.S. invasion created) wouldn’t have carried on in the manner that it did.

I say that because as the polling showed the American people losing faith in the war by January 2005, the mainstream media backgrounded all of the bad news (like military massacres, civilian deaths, torture, sectarian violence, PTSD) while foregrounding Pentagon talking points that said new counterinsurgency methods and tactical wins meant victory was “right around the corner.” They lied about reconstruction progress, too, as Peter Van Buren points out right here

An entire ecosystem of information management ensured that the major networks, newspapers and radio, owned by only a handful of conglomerates, were singing the same tune, all of the time.

Frum, Lake, and columnists like Max Boot, who now, conveniently, says he regrets it, were what Spock would call top “lifeforms” in that ecosystem. 

We must talk about this because these men and their compradores in the Washington swamp want to dismiss any comparison to how we view Ukraine and how the media is covering U.S. policy in that war. They have not learned any lessons about meddling and the limits of American power writ large, just in failed wars of the past.

This is why I am joining Peter Beinart, Jonathan Landay, and Krystal Ball this Wednesday in D.C. to talk about how we can commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War by sussing out how the media was complicit, and what it can do to learn from those lessons. Please consider joining us in person or watch our livestream. It is not about re-litigating or belaboring, but about setting the record straight, lest we fall into the same traps again.

Quincy-institute-iraq-war-poster-807x1024


Eli Lake (New America Foundation/Wikimedia Commons); Max Boot (Naval War College) and David Frum (Flickr/Policy Exchange)|
Analysis | North America
Trade review process could rock the calm in US-Mexico relations
Top image credit: Rawpixel.com and Octavio Hoyos via shutterstock.com

Trade review process could rock the calm in US-Mexico relations

North America

One of the more surprising developments of President Trump’s tenure in office thus far has been the relatively calm U.S. relationship with Mexico, despite expectations that his longstanding views on trade, immigration, and narcotics would lead to a dramatic deterioration.

Of course, Mexico has not escaped the administration’s tariff onslaught and there have been occasional diplomatic setbacks, but the tenor of ties between Trump and President Claudia Sheinbaum has been less fraught than many had anticipated. However, that thaw could be tested soon by economic disagreements as negotiations open on a scheduled review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA).

keep readingShow less
Trump Rubio
Top image credit: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (right) is seen in the Oval Office with US President Donald Trump (left) during a meeting with the King of Jordan, Abdullah II Ibn Al-Hussein in the Oval Office the White House in Washington DC on Tuesday, February 11, 2025. Credit: Aaron Schwartz / Pool/Sipa USA via REUTERS
The US-Colombia drug war alliance is at a breaking point

Trump poised to decertify Colombia

Latin America

It appears increasingly likely that the Trump administration will move to "decertify" Colombia as a partner in its fight against global drug trafficking for the first time in 30 years.

The upcoming determination, due September 15, could trigger cuts to hundreds of millions of dollars in bilateral assistance, visa restrictions on Colombian officials, and sanctions on the country's financial system under current U.S. law. Decertification would strike a major blow to what has been Washington’s top security partner in the region as it struggles with surging coca production and expanding criminal and insurgent violence.

keep readingShow less
Trump Vance Rubio
Top image credit: President Donald Trump meets with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance before a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Monday, August 18, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

The roots of Trump's wars on terror trace back to 9/11

Global Crises

The U.S. military recently launched a plainly illegal strike on a small civilian Venezuelan boat that President Trump claims was a successful hit on “narcoterrorists.” Vice President JD Vance responded to allegations that the strike was a war crime by saying, “I don’t give a shit what you call it,” insisting this was the “highest and best use of the military.”

This is only the latest troubling development in the Trump administration’s attempt to repurpose “War on Terror” mechanisms to use the military against cartels and to expedite his much vaunted mass deportation campaign, which he says is necessary because of an "invasion" at the border.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.