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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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The war was always unpopular with the left, though at the time even anti-war activists would do a lot of throat clearing about how evil Saddam was. It was very popular with the right, who mostly, as you say, thought removing Saddam would turn Iraqis into democracy-lovers. (Remember all those photos of Iraqis proudly showing off their purple fingers?)

To this very day my boomer Dad recalls those photos of Iraqi women casting votes. That was powerful enough to him to support the war.

The war was always unpopular with the anti-establishment left, who have always been more visible than they deserve given their actual level of public support. It was also unpopular with the anti-establishment right, although I don't know how many people noticed given that the anti-establishment right didn't have a megaphone at the time.

The pro-establishment left mostly supported the war, although my read at the time was I was not the only person with pro-establishment left sympathies who only did so because I trusted Blair to tell the truth about WMD etc. in a way that I didn't trust the Bush administration. Pro-establishment left elites like Senate Democrats or NYT access journalists had access to the same stovepiped intelligence that the Bush administration did, and almost entirely supported the war. That Obama was a notable exception is why he was a strong Presidential candidate in 2008.

The war was net-unpopular by the 2004 election (which is surprisingly close given the good economy) at which point it had become clear that the WMD were at best a small legacy stockpile that had never been a real threat to anything except an invading army and that the administration had got itself into a quagmire by failing to plan for the aftermath of victory. It didn't become shockingly unpopular until about 2006 when it became clear that the US had failed to find anyone capable of governing Iraq except Iranian proxies or Salafi jihadis.

I don't know how many people noticed given that the anti-establishment right didn't have a megaphone at the time.

The American Conservative is the big one that I remember, and their opposition to the Iraq War is how I remember finding them. But they were certainly a tiny percentage of the right. There was also libertarian opposition at Reason and Raimondo's antiwar dot com, but again pretty small audiences in the grand scheme of things.

I do remember all those photos; I remember lots of democrats awful proud of Iraqi elections even if they didn't like Bush. The war was well-defended on 'liberal' grounds and maybe I'm just confusing liberal and leftist here but I recall plenty of definitely-not-Bush voters awfully supportive of the war.