No more Mr Nice Guy. Vincent Browne tried a little humility last week, acknowledging a sanctimonious tone in his condemnation of US foreign policy, especially over Iraq and error in one of my arguments.
The response has been indignation on the part of those who formerly regarded me as an ideological ally and gloating triumphalism on the part of critics. Humility doesn't work.
The invasion of Iraq was wrong for several reasons, and it was unconscionable that Ireland aided and abetted that enterprise. First, there was no credible evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or at least was in a position to threaten its neighbours, the Middle East generally, America or the world at large.
Iraq had been subjected to 12 years of punishing sanctions and, for most of that time, to intrusive inspections. It had suffered humiliation in the 1991 war and knew the international community would intervene again if it should invade a neighbour.
There was no credible evidence that it was in league with terrorists, other than a few minor organisations that had been based in Baghdad for years. Certainly no evidence that it was linked with al-Qaeda. So that justification carried no water.
More tellingly, the brazen US and UK refusal to allow the weapons inspectors time to determine whether there was any truth at all to the contention that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction was an outrage (is that sanctimonious enough?). War is justifiable only as a last resort and, manifestly, the war on Iraq was not a last resort, more like a first resort.
There was every reason to believe that a war on Iraq would have hugely destabilising consequences for the region, and so it has proved. I and others were wrong in our predictions of the scale of casualties that would ensue in the short term, but we have not been wrong about the long-term destabilisation.
Iraq had been contained from 1992. Now it is not. Large parts of the country have become playgrounds for Islamic terrorists, whose aim is to destabilise, not just Iraq but the region. The civil war may well spill over to Iran and Saudi Arabia, and what then?
Some of us thought that a consequence of British support for the invasion would be an American initiative in the Middle East that would result in a fair resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The reverse has happened. As a consequence of that, and the aftermath of the invasion, the world is now a more dangerous place than before.
The humanitarian argument was always humbug. If the world cared about humanitarian causes, how come there was no interest in a war in Africa that has resulted in the deaths of millions of people? I am referring to the war in the Congo. There was no humanitarian concern during the Iraq-Iran war, which was far worse than anything that has occurred since.
The Americans armed both sides and eventually came down in favour of Saddam Hussein, who had started the war in the first place by invading Iran.
I always thought the international law argument was weak. It is not clear that the US and UK acted in breach of a UN resolution in invading Iraq or, to put it differently, that they did not have authorisation for the UN resolution passed in November 2002 when Ireland was a member of the UN Security Council and took such pride in getting that resolution through.
Anyway, the whole edifice of the Security Council is corrupt (its unrepresentative nature; the vetoes and permanent members etc), and there is not a great deal of reason to pay much attention to it.
The only point I recanted was the one concerning the killing of innocent people. Previously I had argued that any action that knowingly involved the killing of innocent human beings was wrong, even if that killing was an indirect consequence of an otherwise justifiable action.
I had used that argument many years ago against the IRA bombing campaign and had disagreed with the Catholic doctrine of indirect consequence. That position is that the taking of innocent human life may be justifiable if there is not a direct intention to kill and if the action is otherwise OK, even though it is known that innocent human beings will be killed.
I thought this was a piece of Jesuitical hypocrisy. Now I am not so sure! I am sure (or think I am) that the utilitarian justification for the taking of some human lives to save others is wrong, but where there is not an intention to take lives and it is merely an incidental consequence or an otherwise justifiable action I am not sure.
The Dublin psychiatrist who, with his American wife, had complained about Irish moralising has been in touch. I got his origins wrong, and he is indignant. He was brought up in Crumlin but born in the Liberties. Apologies. Can't get away from this humility caper.