I have some questions to ask of Anti-War Indians, the ones who were really strident in their opposition to war. A good sample of them can be found on Kiruba’s blog – the ones who held candle-light vigils on Marina Beach.

Did you honestly believe that the war would be bad for the Iraqis?
I am asking this because nothing else would even justify the “Bush=Hitler” posters and the statements that Bush is morally no different from Saddam.

Now that you’ve watched Iraqis dancing on the street, kissing Bush’s posters welcoming American troops and giving the chappal treatment to Saddam’s portraits and statues, did you expect things to turn out differently? (If so, will you acknowledge that before changing the subject? Or will the only acknowledgement will be to put “liberation” in scare quotes? )
Now that you’ve seen all this… I don’t expect you to change your views really, but anything that you say will start sounding like spin.

You can claim that your opponents are being deluded by the western media, but you too got your stories from the same media, while the Iraqis were there. Anything you say can be countered with “So do you think you know more about Iraq than those Iraqis who danced on the street?”
Remember you held up photographs of the badly injured Iraqi child and expected it to end all arguments? Now your opponents will point to the collapse of Saddam’s statue and expect all arguments to end.

A lot of things can go wrong from now on and many things will probably will. Your worst nightmares might still come true. The US may install a puppet regime. It might transpire that the war indeed was all for oil. The situation in the Middle East might really worsen.
But as stories of Saddam’s atrocities (Link requires free registration) come out, any claim by you that the invasion was a mistake will be turned back at you and your opponents will react with horror at the suggestion that a monster like Saddam should have been left in power.

This is why it is a bad idea to indulge in hyperbole.

This turned out to be longer than expected. More questions later.

And oh.. swami, this is how Victory Changes Everything.