I was reading up on Ignatieff in Wikipedia:
Michael Ignatieff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As it turns out, he supported the Iraq War too, but has sinse distanced himself from it. Here's the quote from Wikipedia:
[edit] International affairs
Ignatieff has written extensively on international development, peacekeeping and the international responsibilities of Western nations. Critical of the limited-risk approach practiced by
NATO in conflicts like the
Kosovo War and the
Rwandan Genocide, he says that there should be more active involvement and larger scale deployment of land forces by Western nations in future conflicts in the
developing world. Ignatieff attempts to distinguish his approach from
Neo-conservativism because the motives of the
foreign engagement he advocates are essentially altruistic rather than selfserving.
[15]
In this vein, Ignatieff was a prominent supporter of the
2003 Invasion of Iraq.
[16] Ignatieff says that the United States established "an
empire lite, a global hegemony whose grace notes are free markets, human rights and democracy, enforced by the most awesome military power the world has ever known." The burden of that empire, he says, obliged the United States to expend itself unseating Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein in the interests of international security and human rights. Ignatieff initially accepted the position of the
George W. Bush administration: that containment through sanctions and threats would not prevent Hussein from selling
weapons of mass destruction to
international terrorists. Ignatieff believed that those
weapons were still being developed in Iraq.
[17] Moreover, according to Ignatieff, "what Saddam Hussein had done to the
Kurds and the
Shia" in Iraq was sufficient justification for the invasion.
[18][19]
In the years following the invasion, Ignatieff reiterated his support for the war, if not the method in which it was conducted. "I supported an administration whose intentions I didn't trust," he averred, "believing that the consequences would repay the gamble. Now I realize that intentions do shape consequences."
[16] He eventually recanted his support for the war entirely. In a 2007
New York Times Magazine article, he wrote: "The unfolding catastrophe in Iraq has condemned the political judgment of a president, but it has also condemned the judgment of many others, myself included, who as commentators supported the invasion." Ignatieff partly interpreted what he now saw as his particular errors of judgment, by presenting them as typical of academics and intellectuals in general, whom he characterised as "generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea". In politics, by contrast, "Specifics matter more than generalities".
[20]
On June 3, 2008, Michael Ignatieff voted to implement a program which would “allow
conscientious objectors…to a war not sanctioned by the
United Nations…to…remain in Canada…”
[21][22][23]
Ignatieff has also spoken on the issue of Canadian participation in the North American
Missile Defence Shield. In "Virtual War," Ignatieff refers to the likelihood of America developing a MDS to protect the United States. Nowhere did Ignatieff voice support for Canadian participation in such a scheme.
[24] Further, in October 2006, Ignatieff indicated that he personally would not support ballistic missile defence nor the weaponization of space.
[25]
It would seem that Ignatieff's view of the Iraq War was that he supported the war in spite of disagreeing with the intentions. This view is slightly different from the one I'd had from the beginning. I supported the War on the grounds that Hussain had violated human rights, but on condition that it have international support, recognizing that if US intentions should become suspect, the US would not get international co-operation, as has been the case. Ignatieff's view seems to have changed along the same lines, recognizing that intentions, or even perceived intentions, are just as important as the act itself in determining its chances of success.
Personally, I recognize that a person's views do change, but also like proof that they have indeed changed and that the same error in judgement is not likely to be repeated again. Do you think Ignatieff's history on this might come back to haunt him next election?
