It's hard to describe to people who weren't politically aware during the Bush years and some of the Obama years -- there was a very strong war fever then that doesn't exist at all now.

Trump and Biden, neither one are proposing anything like the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, or even a smaller intervention like Libya. Back between 2001-2003 and longer than that, liberal magazines were talking about taking over middle eastern countries and running their entire gov

Behind most of this war fervor was a real kind of liberal Messianic, this really strong savior complex. If you're not against taking out Saddam, you're with Saddam, it was Kendist foreign policy.

That's basically the definition of neoconservative, they had liberal roots and thought they couldn't achieve their order without huge military force https://twitter.com/flarniganotoole/status/1303518979449745408

This was the editor of The American Prospect's website making the case for the war in Iraq. It was all liberal rhetoric, too -- stopping fascists, deposing a dictator, helping the underprivileged. If you don't agree with this, you are "willing to live with them."

George Packer offered a good review here: America was juxtaposed primarily between fear (of Saddam Hussein) and the assumption that of course Saddam Hussein was the absolute evil so anything was justified in response https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/08/magazine/the-liberal-quandary-over-iraq.html

I don't think this kind of messianic stance will return to foreign policy anytime soon because of Iraq just like Vietnam changed the trajectory of US history but I do think this messianic attitudes can take many forms. If you don't support action X, you must be okay with Y.

I agree he was one of the world's dictators for sure. But I think the flawed thinking that gripped America was the idea that if you are presented with such a foul situation, anything you do is therefore justified, even if it's foolish, rushed, or illegal https://twitter.com/WndlB/status/1303521743164891136

"This is something liberals should care about -- because liberating the captive peoples of the Mideast is a virtue in itself," Thomas Friedman, Jan 2003. Well as long as it's a virtue, don't have to think about the consequences if you feel virtuous.

So maybe the next time you feel like there's overwhelming pressure to "DO SOMETHING" think through: is the something actually wise? I think the moral panics and hysteria that gripped America in 2001 live on, they just manifest in different ways than an external war.