Isilion

I not going to act like some wonky freak who pretends to know all the whos and whats of politics because I am a neophyte and I actually do have an other interest or two, but I do know that Andrew Sullivan has been considered pro-Iraq War and once wrote

I agree with John McCain that peremptory withdrawal or a fixed date would amount to surrender to an enemy that seems to be gaining momentum and strength. It would mean a historic betrayal of all those Iraqis who want a better future; and consigning Iraq to a new and more lethal version of the Taliban’s Afghanistan. It would put us in a more vulnerable position than we were on September 10, 2001.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2006/06/cut_and_run.html

Well, now he says

I admire McCain in so many ways. He is the adult in the field, he is attuned to the issue of climate change in a way no other Republican is, he is a genuine war hero and a patriot, and he bravely and rightly opposed the disastrous occupation policies of the Bush administration in Iraq. The surge is no panacea for Iraq; but it has enabled the United States to lose the war without losing face. And that, in the end, is why I admire McCain but nonetheless have to favor Paul over McCain. Because on the critical issue of our time - the great question of the last six years - Paul has been proven right and McCain wrong. And I say that as someone who once passionately supported McCain’s position on the war but who cannot pretend any longer that it makes sense.

Let’s be clear: we have lost this war. We have lost because the initial, central goals of the invasion have all failed: we have not secured WMDS from terrorists because those WMDs did not exist. We have not stymied Islamist terror - at best we have finally stymied some of the terror we helped create. We have not constructed a democratic model for the Middle East - we have instead destroyed a totalitarian government and a phony country, only to create a permanently unstable, fractious, chaotic failed state, where the mere avoidance of genocide is a cause for celebration. We have, moreover, helped solder a new truth in the Arab mind: that democracy means chaos, anarchy, mass-murder, national disintegration and sectarian warfare. And we have also empowered the Iranian regime and made a wider Sunni-Shiite regional war more likely than it was in 2003. Apart from that, Mr Bush, how did you enjoy your presidency?

McCain, for all his many virtues, still doesn’t get this. Paul does.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/12/ron-paul-for-th.html

I suppose I’m not the only person saying “Andrew, welcome to the revolution.”