Real men make tough decisions.
Real men are aggressive.
Real men are not caring.
Real men are not sensitive.
Real men don’t care what others think.

“Obviously, we are gratified that the Iraq strategy we have long advocated … has become the policy of the U.S. government, because we believe it is the right policy for the country and the world. But we feel no joy and little satisfaction. It would have been much better if Saddam could have been removed without war, or if he had been removed at the end of the previous Gulf War. We wish a peaceful resolution were now possible. But it is not. Wishes are not facts. Saddam has proven—he had proven by December 1997—that he will not disarm peacefully. And he must be disarmed. So war will come.

We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam’s regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite sensitivity, other people’s pain. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.”

—William Kristol, “The Imminent War,” Weekly Standard, Mar. 17, 2003 (via Anonymous Liberal, “Bill Kristol: Pundit Superstar,” Unclaimed Territory, Jan. 2, 2007, available at http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/bill-kristol-pundit-superstar.html).