Calculated obtuseness in the post-Peloponnesian era

Victor David Hanson skips over a few inconvenient items.

What then is the real difference with this administration’s effort [to birth democracy]? Taking out the Taliban and Saddam in the Middle East proved to be far more difficult and costly operations than bombing Milosevic from on high, or decapitating the Noriega regime.

So I fear that it is not the principle of occasionally spreading democracy by arms as much as the messiness of the Iraqi war that bothers most. Take away 2,300 American fatalities and envision a stable government in two or three months in Baghdad, and we would hear very few meas magnas culpas.[emph added]

So the problem is not the gross incompetence, the blatant manipulation, the shocking brutality, or the hundreds of billions of dollars in war debt. The problem with the Iraq war is simply that Americans have a low tolerance for messiness.

UPDATE Brad DeLong explores Hanson's personal revisionist tendencies in "Victor Davis Hanson Sprays Self With Rhetorical Buckshot." Be sure to read the comments, too.