On Dec 4, 2006, at 3:19 PM, Steven L. Robinson wrote:
> Elite opposition? You wouldn't have known it from reading the
> voices of elite opinion, especially the New York Times - among
> others. The increasing ferocity of attacks on the Iraq state (esp.
> Clinton's Desert Fox operation) would have signalled to any
> percipient observer that the days of the Baathist regime were
> numbered and that the US would take steps to bring it about -
> especially since it was clear that Saddam would not go voluntarily
> and that he was not about to be overthrown from internal forces.
> While elite leaders may have differed over the implementation and
> the timing of the invasion, it is fairly safe to assume that there
> was elite consensus and not dissension over the invasion.
Um, did you read what I said? Patrick Cockburn (who had a fellowship in DC in the months before the war) writes in his new book, The Occupation, that privately there was a lot of elite opposition, but it wasn't expressed in public. Which means that you wouldn't have read about it in the NYT in late2002/early 2003. That's the whole point of the story.
Doug