A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq

Overview

Christopher Hitchens assembles a sequence of essays and polemics advocating the 2003 intervention in Iraq, arguing that removing Saddam Hussein was both a moral imperative and a practical necessity. The title captures a paradox: the military phase might be brief, but the liberation and political transformation would be prolonged and unfinished without decisive action.
Hitchens frames the argument against what he sees as a complacent international consensus that preferred containment and negotiation to confronting clear criminality. He treats the campaign as a chance to end brutality and to challenge regimes that flourish under impunity.

Main Arguments

Hitchens argues that Saddam Hussein's regime was irredeemably criminal, responsible for mass murder, torture, gassing of Kurds and repression of Shiites, and thus not merely a geopolitical adversary but a moral emergency. He rejects the idea that containment or sanctions were sufficient responses, claiming they prolonged suffering and allowed the regime to survive and prepare further aggression.
He insists that the case for intervention combined strategic, legal and humanitarian rationales: enforcement of UN resolutions, prevention of weapons of mass destruction, and the removal of a regional menace. Hitchens frequently scorns those who defended or excused tyrannies on the grounds of realpolitik, portraying antiwar arguments as a form of moral cowardice or bad faith.

Humanitarian and Moral Case

Hitchens places moral urgency at the center of his case, describing scenes of atrocity and the routine brutality of Saddam's rule to undercut arguments that prioritize stability over justice. He foregrounds the suffering of Iraqis as decisive, arguing that the international community has obligations that transcend diplomatic inconvenience.
Beyond immediate relief, Hitchens envisions a longer-term duty to support democratization and the rule of law. He rejects the notion that Western powers should forever defer liberation because the aftermath might be complicated, insisting that moral considerations cannot be subordinated to the fear of difficult nation-building.

Geopolitical Strategy

Strategically, Hitchens views Saddam as a destabilizing force whose removal would recalibrate power in the Middle East and constrain threats to neighbors, including Iran and Israel. He argues that a decisive intervention could deter would-be proliferators and demonstrate a willingness to enforce international norms.
While critical of the United Nations' paralysis, Hitchens is not purely unilateralist; he values multilateral coalitions but contends that moral clarity and decisive leadership matter more than procedural consensus. He addresses practical questions about postwar reconstruction and governance with the expectation that Western intervention should include a serious plan for rebuilding civic institutions.

Tone, Style, and Reception

The writing is combative, erudite and unflinching, combining historical allusion, personal indignation and forensic critique of opponents. Hitchens deploys wit and moral clarity to goad both the left and sections of the political establishment into rejecting appeasement.
Reception was sharply divided: many praised the moral courage and lucidity of his arguments, while critics accused him of underestimating the costs of occupation, overrelying on disputed intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, and overlooking complex social realities in Iraq. Subsequent events, prolonged insurgency, sectarian strife and the failure to discover stockpiled WMD, complicated the book's confident predictions and made it a lightning rod in debates about interventionism and liberal internationalism.

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