Now that the Bush administration has lost its post-hoc justification for the Iraq war, will the conservatives try to resurrect the initial justification? In the wake of the Abu Ghraib acandal, it has become difficult for the neo-cons to justify the war on the basis of ending years of torture and repression in Iraq. Of course, the situation in Iraq on the whole is still better than it was under Saddam, but the prisoner abuse scandal has undercut America's moral high ground.

In the wake of this, will the neo-cons or other Bush administration apologists try to revive the WMD issue? This editorial by William Safire in the New York Times indicates some desire to do so. He cites the discovery of sarin gas in an IED (roadside bomb) over the weekend as evidence that WMD's still exist in Iraq. Never mind the fact that most experts believe that it is an old leftover from the 1980's.

In fact, Safire goes on to revive the argument that Saddam had ties to al Qaeda, in spite of the fact that no good evidence could be found of this link. Even the Bush administration has backed off on this argument. Safire cites Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the terrorist that is said to have killed Nicholas Berg last week, as evidence of a link. Never mind that Zarqawi never operated in the portions of Iraq controlled by Saddam, but operated only in the autonomous region of Kurdistan.

He also raises the straw man of racism. Conservatives like to prop up the argument that Arabs are not culturally ready for democracy, only to shoot it down. I have never heard this argument seriously put forward as a reason not to go forward with the Iraq war and democracy-building in Iraq. I have only heard it cited by the pro-war crowd as a straw man to discredit the anti-war movement.

I think Safire is a good writer, probably better than I ever will be. I also like his linquistic columns in the Times, though I haven't seen them in a few years. When it comes to politics, I think he is disingenuous and uses facts to support his already formed opinions rather than using facts as part of the process of developing opinions. Compare his columns to those of Thomas Friedman and I think you will see what I mean.

update:
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has his own comments on Safire's article. Read it here.