This is a short diary that I felt motivated to write because another diary on here may mislead many about what Ignatieff wrote for tomorrow's NYT Magazine.
The diarist here seems to feel that this apology is too mealy-mouthed, too self-serving, too dismissive of those Ignatieff disagreed with, and not nearly contrite enough. Well, there is some of that, to be sure. Mr. Ignatieff still has a healthy ego, and I think his potshots at those who opposed Iraq for "ideological reasons" are reflections of that ego.
But there is so much more in the article worth reading. In fact, I think it's the best mea culpa yet, in that it really fingers the problems with the Bush approach, and with Bush himself. (More...)
Here is the entire body of a comment from that diary, because I think it's helpful to point out these aspects of the apology. You can then judge for yourself which side of this to come down on.
First things first, the biggest problem with Ignatieff cheering on Bush in Iraq is that, at the time, he was a justifiably respected voice from liberal academia, who had championed the cause of global human rights for some time. His position was not simply wrong, it vitiated so much of the good he had done, and impugned so many he worked with--his responses to their relevant and appropriate criticisms were petty and puerile, the ravings of a spoiled ego.
Second, he is not a "neo-con" or even close. His support was all the more remarkable because he didn't drink the neo-con Kool-aid, but had simply been locked in his Harvard ivory tower for too long to notice he could no longer see events on the ground clearly.
Third, everyone who writes an apologia for their previous commentaries in a vehicle like the NYT Review deserves plaudits just for doing so. That it is not absolutely prostrated and humble, that it contains little digs at his interlocutors does not diminish the apology, just the man. Yes, he still has an ego, and it clouds his ability to say "I was wrong" without caveats.
Lastly, his apology goes farther than merely apologizing--it suggests a rationale which is not too far from the truth, and includes a clear critique of Mr. Bush:
In public life, a politician’s mistakes are first paid by others. Good judgment means understanding how to be responsible to those who pay the price of your decisions.
Fixed principle matters. There are some goods that cannot be traded, some lines that cannot be crossed, some people who must never be betrayed. But fixed ideas of a dogmatic kind are usually the enemy of good judgment. It is an obstacle to clear thinking to believe that America’s foreign policy serves God’s plan to expand human freedom.
The people who truly showed good judgment on Iraq predicted the consequences that actually ensued but also rightly evaluated the motives that led to the action. They did not necessarily possess more knowledge than the rest of us. They labored, as everyone did, with the same faulty intelligence and lack of knowledge of Iraq’s fissured sectarian history. What they didn’t do was take wishes for reality. They didn’t suppose, as President Bush did, that because they believed in the integrity of their own motives everyone else in the region would believe in it, too. They didn’t suppose that a free state could arise on the foundations of 35 years of police terror. They didn’t suppose that America had the power to shape political outcomes in a faraway country of which most Americans knew little. They didn’t believe that because America defended human rights and freedom in Bosnia and Kosovo it had to be doing so in Iraq. They avoided all these mistakes.
I made some of these mistakes and then a few of my own.
And this is the clearest reason of all to appalaud:
Good judgment in politics, it turns out, depends on being a critical judge of yourself. It was not merely that the president did not take the care to understand Iraq. He also did not take the care to understand himself. The sense of reality that might have saved him from catastrophe would have taken the form of some warning bell sounding inside, alerting him that he did not know what he was doing. But then, it is doubtful that warning bells had ever sounded in him before. He had led a charmed life, and in charmed lives warning bells do not sound.
He has rehabilitated himself in my eyes at least--and that is saying much. Especially as I now feel comfortable voting for him.