We All Lost the Iraq War
| Author | Robert Vipond |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200305800301 |
| Published date | 01 September 2003 |
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
ROBERT
VIPOND
We
all
lost
the
Iraq War
Reflections
ofa
Canadian
Fulbrighter
in
America
Editors'
note.
This
past
winter,
when
war
in
Iraq
seemed
inevitable,
the
International
Journal asked
Professor
V"pond,
who
was
at
the
time
a
Fulbright
scholar
at
Harvard
University,
to
follow
events
with
a
view
towards
reflecting
on
them
later
in
a
personal
essay
as
a
Canadian
in
the
us in
a
time
ofwar.
LIKE
MANY
CANADIANS,
I
tuned
in
on the
evening
of
17
March 2003
to
watch President
George
W
Bush
deliver
his
much-anticipated ulti-
matum
to
Saddam
Hussein.
Unlike
most
Canadians,
I
watched
the
speech
in
the
us
itself-to
be precise,
from Harvard
University.
About
midway
through
the
speech,
I
began to
surf
for
some alternative,
but
encountered
the
same
face-serious,
sombre
and
smirk-free-on
channel
after
channel.
Until,
that
is,
I
reached
the niche
public
affairs
channel,
C-SPAN2.
Here,
to
my
surprise,
I
encountered
taped
coverage
of
Prime
Minister
Jean
Chrdtien
announcing
and
defending
Canada's
decision
not
to
join
"the coalition
of
the
willing."
Tucked
away
on
C-SPAN2,
the Canadian position
on
the
war
in
Iraq
was
largely
invisible
in
the us.
So,
too,
was
I.
Almost
no one
I
encoun-
tered
knew
anything about
the Canadian
position, and
those
who
did,
more often
than
not,
preferred
it
to
their
President's bellicosity
any-
way.
William
Buckley
once
famously
quipped
that
he
would
rather
be
governed
by
the
first
100
names
in
the
Boston
telephone directory
Robert
Vipond
is
Professor
and
Chair
of
the
Department
of
Political
Science
at
the
University
of
Toronto.
The
author
thanks
Neasa
Coll
(Harvard)
andJacqueline
Krikorian
(University
of
Toronto)
for
their
extraordinary
help
in
gathering
materialfor
this
essay,
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Summer
2003
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