Editing David Brooks (commentator) (section)

=== Iraq war ===
Before the [[2003 invasion of Iraq]], Brooks argued for American military intervention, echoing the belief of commentators and political figures that American and British forces would be welcomed as liberators.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/344hkcxs.asp|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030408054132/https://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/344hkcxs.asp|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 8, 2003|title=The Certainty Crisis|last=Brooks|first=David|work=[[The Weekly Standard]]|publisher=[[Clarity Media Group]]|location=Washington, D.C.|date=March 9, 2003|access-date=February 17, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/565jgibg.asp?page=2|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120106065210/http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/565jgibg.asp?page=2|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 6, 2012|title=The Collapse of the Dream Palaces|last=Brooks|first=David|magazine=[[The Weekly Standard]]|publisher=[[Clarity Media Group]]|location=Washington, D.C.|date=April 28, 2003|access-date=February 17, 2015}}</ref> In 2005, Brooks wrote what columnist [[Jonathan Chait]] described as "a witheringly condescending" column portraying Senator [[Harry Reid]] as an "unhinged conspiracy theorist because he accused the [[George W. Bush administration|[George W. Bush] administration]] of falsifying its [[Iraq and weapons of mass destruction|Iraq intelligence]]."<ref>{{cite news|first=David|last=Brooks|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E5D8163EF930A35752C1A9639C8B63|title=The Harry da Reid Code|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|location=New York City|date=November 3, 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|first=Jonathan|last=Chait|author-link=Jonathan Chait|url=http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/was-the-iraq-war-a-crime-or-a-mistake-yes.html|title=Was the Iraq War a Crime or a Mistake? Yes.|magazine=[[New York (magazine)|New York]]|publisher=[[New York Media]]|location=New York City|date=May 18, 2008}}</ref> By 2008, five years into the war, Brooks maintained that the decision to go to war was correct, but that Secretary of Defense [[Donald Rumsfeld]] had botched U.S. war efforts.<ref>{{cite web|first=Greg|last=Mitchell|author-link=Greg Mitchell|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/david-brooks-no-apologies_b_93265.html|title=David Brooks: No Apologies 5 Years Later|website=[[The Huffington Post]]|date=March 25, 2008}}</ref>

In 2015, Brooks wrote that "[f]rom the current vantage point, the decision to go to war was a clear misjudgment" made in 2003 by President [[George W. Bush]] and the majority of Americans who supported the war, including Brooks himself.<ref name="LearningFromMistakes">{{cite news|first=David|last=Brooks|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/opinion/david-brooks-learning-from-mistakes.html|title=Learning From Mistakes|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=May 19, 2015}}</ref> Brooks wrote "many of us thought that, by taking down [[Saddam Hussein]], we could end another evil empire, and gradually open up human development in Iraq and the Arab world. Has that happened? In 2004, I would have said yes. In 2006, I would have said no. In 2015, I say yes and no, but mostly no."<ref name="LearningFromMistakes"/> Citing the [[Iraq Intelligence Commission|Robb-Silberman report]], Brooks rejected as a "fable" the idea that "intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was all cooked by political pressure, that there was a big political conspiracy to lie us into war."<ref name="LearningFromMistakes"/> Instead, Brooks viewed the war as a product of faulty intelligence, writing that "[t]he Iraq war error reminds us of the need for epistemological modesty."<ref name="LearningFromMistakes"/>