How to Judge (And Not to Judge) the Iraq War

I hope to have a lot more to say on this shortly, but suffice it to say that I think this is the wrong way to judge the merits of the invasion of Iraq:

To understand properly what the Bush administration’s legacy will be with regard to Iraq, one must comprehend the conditions Saddam Hussein subjected Iraq’s citizenry to prior to the country’s liberation in 2003. Moreover, one must compare those past conditions to the current condition of the newly forming democracy in the Middle East.

I would suggest that those questions are, in fact, irrelevant (not in an absolute moral sense, of course, but to the question at hand). Bush's legacy hinges on the question of whether the invasion improved American security at an acceptable cost. If President Bush had stood before the American people in 2002 and suggested we invade Iraq to improve the lives of Iraqis, there would be no war.

The war's remaining supporters have to answer a simple question, without recourse to absurd hypotheticals about what Saddam Hussein "might" have done (because any leader anywhere might do something crazy): has the invasion made us safer?

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Nick Crosby helps an Iraqi woman cross a water-filled street during a cordon and search mission in Al Risalah, Iraq, May 8, 2007. Crosby is assigned to Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Bennie Corbett, U.S. Army