Victor Davis Hanson, on the mark again: Hedging on Iraq.

What exactly do we think is going on in Iraq? The Democratic platform hedges on the war, suggesting that reasonable people can argue over the need for last year’s intervention — as if Dennis Kucinich and Joe Lieberman have only slight disagreements about our involvement. John Kerry and John Edwards voted for the war, but not for its funding. But they say that we must persevere — although they are still against it. They want more allies now, but do not tell us what Mr. Bush should do differently to get them. Their half war is like being half pregnant.

Meanwhile, emboldened paleoconservatives now talk about the war as a betrayal of old-fashioned republicanism. Even a few neocons seem to have bailed, sometimes blaming Rumsfeld for not following their grand plan of “nation-building,” sometimes suggesting that the idea all along was to topple Saddam and then more or less leave. Bremer was acclaimed at first as more astute than Garner, then about the same, now worse — perhaps tomorrow he’ll be thought better again.

What is going on? In two words: perception and politics. No one will bet the ranch on whether Iraq will descend into a Lebanon or be seen as a singular success that began to end the pathology of the Middle East. So they hedge, jump back and forth, and want to be on the “right” side — whatever that appears to be each morning. Backing a three-week war in 2003 that ended with less than 200 combat dead and the end of Saddam is one thing — that brought an immediate post-bellum gush from talking heads: “We are all neoconservatives now!” But right before an election, continuing that support for the intervention — through another 700 dead and a messy 15-month path to Iraqi sovereignty and constitutional government — well, that of course turns out to be something quite different.

The problem is not the moral question of removing Saddam in a new frightening post-9/11 world. His crimes were legion; his departure long over due. Most agree on that — but only if there is little perceived cost involved. Thus these mercurial fluctuations in public opinion are not entirely due to the actual tragic bill in blood and treasure. Some Pentagon estimates, after all, warned long ago of a six-month conventional war and 2,000 to 3,000 fatalities. Instead, the problem was the three-week victory that has had unforeseen but powerful consequences in changing our perceptions about what the war really was about and what it accomplished.

Read the whole thing.