Glazov: Welcome gentlemen to Frontpage Symposium. Let's begin with a general question: Can we say still say with confidence that it was the right thing for the U.S. to go into Iraq? How do you read the current situation?

Hanson: Examine three points (1) no more scuds into Kuwait, Israel, invasions of Iraq and Iran; no more worry about petro-dollar-fed weapons programs; no more $20 billion/300,000 sortie no-fly zones; no more genocide of Kurds/Shiites; no more destruction of the Marsh Arabs; no more violations of the 1991 armistice agreements; no more troops in Saudi Arabia; et al.; (2) so far at a cost of less than 400 lives, America has destroyed the Taliban and Hussein regimes (the worst in the Middle East), offered a chance of freedom for 50 million people; suffered no more 9-11s; and changed the landscape of the region in a way that is quite unlike the old Cold War (just pump oil/keep out communists) Realpolitik that led to the appeasement or promotion of tyrants. (3) despite the current hysteria, systematic progress toward a civil society continues in Iraq, as power, schools, politics, trade, and infrastructure are getting better each month. If we really are in a terrible war against Islamofascists and their assorted autocratic abettors, then having such predisposed murderers collect in Iraq where they can be engaged and destroyed in the larger strategic picture of a global war is dangerous of course, but still not necessarily bad...