Fighting Words

In the year leading up the invasion, George W. Bush sketched his justification for the war: good vs. evil, us vs. them. The president wasn’t interested in fleshing out the details beyond that, but lots of other people were.

How did intellectuals, on both the right and left, help bolster the Bush administration’s case for war? And how much responsibility should they bear for one of America’s deadliest mistakes?

Season 5 of Slow Burn is produced by Noreen Malone, Jayson De Leon, and Sophie Summergrad. Mixing by Merritt Jacob.

Books

Beydoun, Khaled A. American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear, University of California Press, 2018.

Draper, Robert. To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq, Penguin Press, 2020.

Isikoff, Michael and David Corn. Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, Crown, 2006.

Makiya, Kanan. Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, University of California Press, 1989.

Mann, James. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, Viking, 2004.

Articles

Beinart, Peter. “A Separate Peace,” the New Republic, March 3, 2003.

Dobbs, Michael. “For Wolfowitz, a Vision May Be Realized,” Washington Post, April 7, 2003.

Drezner, Daniel W. and Henry Farrell. “Web of Influence,” Foreign Policy, Oct. 26, 2009.

“’Drumbeat’ on Iraq? A Response to Readers,” Washington Post, Feb. 27, 2003.

Fallows, James. “The Unilateralist,” the Atlantic, March 2002.

“Flags for Miss Pollitt Update,” the Weekly Standard, Oct. 29, 2001.

Gallagher, David F. “A Rift Among Bloggers,” New York Times, June 10, 2002.

Hitchens, Christopher. “Armchair General,” Slate, Nov. 11, 2002.

Hitchens, Christopher. “How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?,” Slate, March 17, 2008.

Hitchens, Christopher. “Images in a Rearview Mirror,” the Nation, Nov. 15, 2001.

Hitchens, Christopher. “Multilateralism and Unilateralism,” Slate, Dec. 18, 2002.

Hitchens, Christopher. “Taking Sides,” the Nation, Oct. 14, 2002.

Hitchens, Christopher. “(Un)Intended Consequences,” Slate, March 17, 2003.

Ignatieff, Michael. “Getting Iraq Wrong,” New York Times, Aug. 5, 2007.

Keller, Bill. “The I-Can’t-Believe-I’m-a-Hawk Club,” New York Times, Feb. 8, 2003.

Keller, Bill. “The Sunshine Warrior,” New York Times, Sept. 22, 2002.

Kelly, Michael. “Who Would Choose Tyranny?,” Washington Post, Feb. 26, 2003.

Kristol, William and Robert Kagan. “Saddam Must Go,” the Weekly Standard, Nov. 17, 1997.

Kurtz, Howard. “New Republic Editors ‘Regret’ Their Support of Iraq War,” Washington Post, June 19, 2004.

Leibovitz, Annie and Christopher Buckley. “War and Destiny: The White House in Wartime,” Vanity Fair, February 2002.

“Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War,” Slate, January 2004.

Makiya, Kanan. “Help the Iraqi’s Take Their Country Back,” New York Times, Nov. 21, 2001.

Packer, George. “Dreaming Of Democracy,” New York Times, March 2, 2003.

Packer, George. “Hitchens and Iraq,” the New Yorker, Dec. 19, 2011.

Packer, George. “The Liberal Quandary Over Iraq,” New York Times, Dec. 8, 2002.

Parker, Ian. “He Knew He Was Right,” the New Yorker, Oct. 8, 2006.

Remnick, David. “Making a Case,” the New Yorker, Jan. 26, 2003.

Reynolds, Glenn Harlan. “The Blogs of War,” National Interest, March 1, 2004.

“Should the U.S. Invade Iraq?,” Slate, September-October 2002.

Seymour, Richard. “Christopher Hitchens: from socialist to neocon,” Guardian, Jan. 18, 2013.

Tanenhaus, Sam. “Bush’s Brain Trust,” Vanity Fair, July 2003.

Tyler, Patrick E. “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop,” New York Times, March 8, 1992.

Weisberg, Jacob. “Fishing for a Way to Change the World,” Newsweek, Jan. 19, 2008.

Weisberg, Jacob. “The Case Against the Case Against War,” Slate, Sept. 26, 2002.

Why Did We Get It Wrong?, Slate, March 2008.

Zakaria, Fareed. “Why The War Was Right,” Newsweek, Oct. 19, 2003.

Bonus Episode

How the Iraq War Ignited Online Discourse

And looking back at Slate’s own history with the topic.