Failure Watch Along the Right

This will make news on Monday in the blogosphere: William F. Buckley declares the US' adventure in Iraq a failure just one week after Francis F declared the death of neo-conservatism in the New York Times Magazine. It's a good time to be an anti-war neocon; your words will be hailed as brave and certain quarters of the media will welcome you with open arms.

Ah, a sensible conservative, who would have thought?. Like the character of The Good German in the WWII films of the 50s, liberals respect only those neocons who have turned against the liberation of Iraq. Would the editors of the NYT Magazine have given Richard Perle or William Kristol four pages to argue that we should stay the course? Of course not.

That said, WFB's piece is more important because it it published in his weekly column and on the National Review web site, the online arm of the journal he founded in 1950. He has yet to call for the withdrawal of troops but his words will mark a turning point in the argument of the war. In the way that fashion designers often create bold and unwearable items, the basic ideas often trickle down to the shoping mall months later: the height of the skirt, the cut of the shoulder, even the overall color scheme.

Likewise, WFB's ideas may signal a greenlight to neocons that the war is over and the mission unaccomplished.