Henry Farrell's post at Crooked Timber on the IR scholars letter is worth a look. Several months ago he noted the paucity of foreign policy experts supporting the invasion of Iraq. Predictably, the comment threads from Drezner and Crooked Timber are rather different in focus. A large portion of the Drezner thread is devoted to labelling American academics as left-wing. As to be expected, I'm more inclined to agree with Henry's take. It's a pretty massive portion of every part of the academic spectrum that's represented there, amny with notable policy backgrounds as well. Not many truly important names missing other than, obviously, folks like Gaddis who got out in front so loudly in promoting the invasion.

I was interested that Drezner, in explaining why he declined to sign the letter, was bothered by the letter's opening reference to Viet Nam. Drezner explained that he didn't like the Viet Nam comparison, even though it was not comparing the two conflicts directly but rather stating that Iraq was the most serious challenge to US foreign policy since Viet Nam.

Drezner's comment was "Measured in terms of costs and benefits, Iraq does not even come close to Vietnam." I'm afraid I agree with him, but have reached the opposite conclusion.

I believe Iraq is likely to prove far more damaging to the US' long-term geostrategic, economic and "soft power" positions than Viet Nam has turned out to have been. I think the relative benefits from the two adventures (giving Southeast Asia a protective umbrella for more than a decade versus regime change in Iraq) will be more in the nature of a wash. Hope I'm wrong, and there are things we can do to improve the situation over the coming years, but it's going to require a lot of "hard work," both on and off the battlefield, to recuperate.

If I were a betting woman, I'd wager that a considerable number of the signatories to the letter are more likely to share my fears than take Drezner's view.

I don't know enough about IR scholars to be able to judge the quality of the spectrum. But 650 sounds like an awful lot.

One criticism of the letter that I did find somewhat meritorious was the complaint that by including things like Tora Bora, the IR professors were going beyond their field and meddling with operational decisions. I'm surprised there wasn't more about the fragility of the international system and so forth.

Yes, if I had been writing the thing I would have skipped the specifics and given a bit more system twist to the argument. That's why it's so serious. The stuff about having a proper debate, and getting beyond mythmaking (read lies and fearmongering), would have also received more of a focus if I had authoried it. IMHO, that's as important as the specifics of how they've screwed up in the past. The past should be outlined only for the purposes of indicatinig that the Bush Admin characterization of their successes doesn't comport with the truth and that further incompetence is a significant risk.

But what the heck, they managed to negotiate a document that 650 of them signed. Not a small feat with all those egos!

I know you like the Aardvark, and he thinks it's a big deal.