Some letter-writers - apparently expecting intellectual consistency of some kind, always the sign of a boring mind - have been contrasting my opinions over the Easter Rising and the Iraq war. Why not? There is so much in common between Herbert Asquith and Saddam Hussein. One was a relatively decent, democratic cove who succeeded in making Home Rule law, and the other a psychopathic lunatic who started war against three neighbours, causing the deaths of millions. Why, he even made poison gas - introduced to the world by our "gallant allies" - fashionable once again.
But those readers have a point. How can I justify the Iraqi invasion, done without UN authorisation, yet condemn the Easter Rising, which was similarly undemocratic in instigation? Hmmm. Firstly, the two are not quite the same, not least because France had its veto in the Security Council, and promised to use it, regardless of whatever Saddam threatened: lobbing an atom bomb at the Vatican, or turning Tel Aviv into Chernobyl. Moreover, a single country using its Security Council veto to oppose armed action to overthrow the most murderous tyranny in the world hardly constitutes a "democratic process".
So, I would still maintain that the original decision to invade was right, provided the preparation for the aftermath had been meticulous and exhaustive. Because war can only be justified if those who choose to start it have taken every means to ensure it is successful (yet another moral ground for denouncing the Easter Rising). We know now that the allies did not take every step possible to prepare for the aftermath of the invasion.
Considering the histories of the two main liberators of Iraq, this is utterly astounding. For the British were the architects of Iraq. They deployed teams of brilliant, polyglot administrators drawn from the Indian civil service to shape the institutions of state in the 1920s (after a terrible war, during which they lost 2,000 men in a single summer). Then, 20 years later, the British army churned out specially trained town majors, whose job was to administer the recently liberated territories in mainland Europe, men who were masters of soldiering, schools and sewers.
Similarly, prior to the Normandy landings, the US produced the "60-day marvels" - army officers trained in civil administration at Charlottesville, Virginia, under the AMGOT scheme (Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories). When AMGOT was applied in Germany, General Patton soon discovered that total deNazification was simply not compatible with successful governance. For if one overthrows a totalitarian regime which had made party membership a condition of public employment, one must inevitably employ some former servants of the old regime in the post-war regime. Which is why the post-war German recovery began in the area under Patton's command. But all this seems to have been forgotten in the preparation for the Iraq war, as the invaders attempted the total deBa'athification of Iraq.
And almost by definition invasion must be expensive and big. The enemy must be over-awed. Instead, the invasion was as light as possible, and the sea of gold that should have been spent on the preparations for the aftermath remained as ingots in the vaults of Fort Knox.
The price is now being paid in the civil war now engulfing Iraq - in the hundreds of bodies that are washing up in the main sewage treatment plant in Baghdad, where they are filtered out with specially erected meshes. It is being paid in the massacres now spreading across the region. It is being paid in the boxed corpses of those brave soldiers and marines being daily returned to the US.
So, in answer to the question - how can I condemn the 1916 Rising and not the invasion of Iraq? - the answer now is that I can't. The invasion which I expected - with thousands of Iraqi exiles assisting in post-liberation administration, and as many former servants of the old regime being re-employed as quickly as possible - simply didn't happen. Instead, folly and paralysis happened; and in the resulting vacuum has emerged the most breathtakingly evil man in a region infested by the species: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The invasion of Iraq has been a disaster, for which the US and the UK must take their share of the blame. But so too must the French. Their unconditional veto, without any concrete proposal to bring about the ending of the most dreadful regime in the world (even as French and Russian officials were pocketing millions in bribes from Saddam), was the ultimate in political cynicism. For the alternative to an invasion was for Saddam, and his sons, to stay in power indefinitely as they continued to bribe their corrupt protectors in the UN. Moreover, marching for "peace" - of itself - was not good enough if the only outcome was an unprincipled accommodation with a tyrant, so giving him fresh opportunities for yet more war, torture and terror.
But I concede. Since the invasion led to the present appalling state of affairs, my principled support for the invasion was in practice wrong. I backed a horse which had been trained for seven furlongs, when ahead of it lay a grand national. But that doesn't mean I think the allies should now withdraw. That would be the height of immorality. They triggered the institutional collapse, so they must stay to clear up the mess. They have no choice. Once again, the US, with its army and its Marine Corps, must hold the line. Or else, dark descends, as we find ourselves stumbling into the widest global conflict since 1945.