David Aaronovitch’s column in today’s Times is quite something (although the design of the Times comment pages makes it look like an afterthought). It is a direct challenge to the rigid positions that the pro- and anti-war camps have taken on Iraq. I sat through many Observer editorial meetings watching David arguing the case for war and he was among a small group of senior journailsts on the paper who forged its unfortunate editorial position on the conflict. At the time I didn’t have a column, so I didn’t have to take a position in print, although I did think David was wrong and said so. I was instinctively opposed to intervention but always felt the anti-interventionist Left should have been more honest in admitting that the logic of its position meant leaving a murderous dictator in place, at least for the short term.
Despite our disagreements, I have always thought David Aaronovitch was a fine columnist and unlike some (including my editor!) I have never considered him a neo-con. Today he talks about his dread of the BBC reporter Lyse Doucet’s question to Kofi Annan about whether Iraqis now felt their lives had been better under Saddam. “I didn’t want to hear Mr Annan’s opinion because, of course, I worry it might be true.” This is the great moral burden of those who backed the war, but no one benefits from this situation: this is dreadful for everyone.
I worry that David is now returning to his Communist roots by wondering whether totalitarian rule is sometimes acceptable. It would be a terrible shame if his own disappointment at the failure of Iraqi democracy drove him in this direction.
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