Conservative pundit Glenn Beck admitted on his radio show Tuesday that he was wrong and liberals were right for opposing the invasion of Iraq.
"[Liberals] said we couldn't force freedom on people," Beck said at the start of his radio show on Tuesday. "You were right. Liberals, you were right, we shouldn't have."
"You cannot force democracy on the Iraqis or anybody else, it doesn't work. They don't understand it or even really want it," Beck said.
This is a major turnaround for the famously right-wing pundit who in 2009 said, "The most used phrase in my administration if I were to be president would be 'What the hell you mean we're out of missiles?"'
"Now, in spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said: We shouldn't get involved. We shouldn't nation-build. And there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free," Beck said on his radio program, according to a transcript on his site. "I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free. They said we couldn't force freedom on people. Let me lead with my mistakes. You are right. Liberals, you were right. We shouldn't have."
Beck's comments come amidst a surge in sectarian fighting in Iraq. He explained that at the beginning of U.S. involvement there, he "believed that the United States was under threat from Saddam Hussein." He lamented the increasing partisan divide in U.S. politics, and urged Republicans and Democrats to come together to keep the U.S. out of further involvement, and to bring all remaining troops in Iraq home.
"Finally, there are some things we can come together on and clean up our own house," Beck said. "But if we do to the liberals what they did to us and George W. Bush and make it just about politics, we will be divided more. This cannot become about the President. It cannot become act [sic] the Democrats. This has to become about the principles because in the principles we all agree. Enough is enough. Bring them home, period."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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