Jim Hoagland writes in the Washington Post

The president and Vice President Cheney have led the way in fulfilling a profound moral obligation to the Iraqi people that the United States took on and then put aside with shocking casualness 12 years ago. You cannot wage a destructive air war on a civilian population, then subject it to periodic air attacks and economic sanctions, and still pretend you are not responsible for its fate. This war is not immoral; it is the past years of U.S. neglect, evasion and deceit on Iraq that have been immoral.

The most recent cycle of immorality has been brought to an end by the son of George H.W. Bush, who helped launch it. The elder Bush has always argued that he could not have gone to Baghdad at the end of the Gulf War in 1991 because the international coalition he headed would have collapsed, there would have been no certainty that troops could find and eliminate Saddam Hussein, and American and Iraqi casualties would have mounted.

His son did go to Baghdad. And all of those things did happen. Elder Bush understood the mechanics of the thing pretty well. But Bush the son understood the deeper reality of America's role in the world, especially post-9/11: There are risks that must be taken and prices that must be paid in creating a safer, more humane world order. That had to begin by redeeming America's obligations in Iraq.