[...]Quick, why did the Northern states fight the Civil War -- to end slavery or to preserve the Union? Did Germany decide to enter World War I because of its fear of Britain’s existing power, its concern over Russia’s emerging power, or its reliance on a grand strategy that stressed offensive military operations? Did the U.S. fight Gulf War I to reverse the violation of Kuwaiti sovereignty, to prevent Saddam Hussein from potentially controlling 40% of the world’s proven oil reserves, to stop a dictator as evil as Hitler, or to protect “jobs, jobs, jobs”? Did the U.S. intervene in Bosnia to stop genocide, constrain Serbian expansionism, or preserve NATO's credibility? Did the U.S. fight Gulf War II because of the administration’s concerns over Iraq’s violation of UN resolutions, fears that Saddam’s regime was killing or starving non-Sunni Iraqis, hopes to create a viable democratic Arab state, worries over Iraq’s WMD program, or beliefs that the containment strategy was no longer a viable option?

Scratch an honest historian or international relations scholar, and s/he will tell you that all of these answers have some validity. States often go to war for a melange of reasons that go beyond self-defense. Read either the relevant section of Bush’s State of the Union speech or his AEI speech from this February and you will see all of the reasons listed in the previous paragraph mentioned.

This is why I can’t accept the “Bush lied” meme. I agree with Marshall and Den Beste that the administration emphasized the WMD issue more than the others. However, Saddam’s treatment of his citizens and the desire to spread democracy to the Middle East were mentioned on a fairly regular basis. There is a clear dividing line between lying and spinning, and the administration’s explanations for why an invasion of Iraq would be a just war fall into the latter category.[...]