Would you have voted for the Iraq War?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Without hindsight, probably not.

With hindsight, maybe.

you would be more likely to vote for it with hindsight than without?

Yes. The 'weapons of mass destruction' rationale was always flimsy, and nothing that I've read has done much to convince me that anyone voted for the war on the basis of "secret evidence" or whatever rather than for the sake of political convenience.

Despite this, in purely humanitarian terms , the long-term outcome of the Iraq War looks better at this point than either the continuing disintegration of the Baathist state (or, worse, its revival) would have been.

Hundreds of thousands of war deaths? The displacement of a huge number of Iraqis? The rise of the Islamic State (though I'm a bit on the fence as to whether the Iraq War or the Civil War in Syria has more to do with that)? Not to mention, the actual way in which the occupation of Iraq was handled by L. Paul Bremer and co.?

(I don't really disagree with you btw, I'm just curious as to how you factor all of the above into your calculus).