War carries many mysteries. For instance: I've never even been to Iraq - so why are my opinions about it so damn incisive? I've been checking out the websites (I mean, the blogosphere) and I have to say, I think that I really get it about the whole Iraq thing. That's the miracle of the Internet.

I mean, my copy of Internet Explorer probably knows more about world affairs that Marco Polo did in his whole life – and also saves my ‘Favourites' in a pull-down menu! (Take that, you candy-assed Silk-Road-walking rice-importing fifteenth-century semi-historical mo-fo!) 

While we must suffer the horrors of war in Iraq, there is no need to deny ourselves the solace of well-written, kick-ass columns filled with pointed observations and riffs on the latest events of the day. With that in mind, I think that, if you haven't already, you should strongly consider writing a column about the war in Iraq. I've just written one, and I can tell you, it's a piece of piss.   

It isn't something I decided to do lightly. I've been looking into it, reading up, doing research, and I think that I really am ready for the columnists' big league. I want to make a big splash in the world of columnists, and a column on Iraq is just the thing to position myself as a leading up-and-coming thinker but with edgy, out-there views, ready to totally say it like it is - think Miranda Devine bitch-slapping J. D. Salinger.

Sure, I will probably have to compromise a few of the traditional NewsJunkie values of cynicism and poor-quality writing along the way, but you know how it is: omelettes, eggs, break, end of.  

So, readers, let's take care of business. First up, tone and style. I've decided to go for a fairly up-market, learned approach, leaving behind any leftie whining, with less of this: 

George Bush - does that guy suck, or what? 

And more of this: 

Although Huntingdon's ‘clash of civilisations' thesis gets wide airplay, it is perhaps more accurate to talk about Islam's ‘civilisation of clashes'.  

I'm hoping this will help me project the kind of thought-leading envelope-pushing heavy-weight columnist image that I'm looking for, and also allow me to fill vital column inches by name-checking a sequence of neo-conservative pundits without too much effort. I'm angling to do some of the name-dropping in a way that strongly implies that, when I am not taking time off to write down my absolutely brilliant insights into the situation in Iraq, I spend most of my time hanging out in right-wing think-tanks chugging brewskies – along the lines of: 

As many of us have tried to argue with him in person, Fukayama's analysis relies far too heavily on geo-political macro-trends and far too little on the cultural and socio-religious factors at play in the forces that shape history. Few, I believe, truly realise the extent to which the title "The End of History" carried overtones of the ironic. 

Pretty neat stuff, huh? Now we're cooking, let's turn up the heat  

Next up, any column on Iraq needs to deal with why we went to war. A few years ago, this was the hot topic, with entire columns devoted purely to pondering the mysteries of the second UN resolution, Hans Blix, yada, yada, yada. That's old hat now. What matters now is to reference the debate, but in a way that makes it clear that you regard the whole area as a slightly childish sideshow, mostly of interest to small children, the print-impaired and fools who miss the wood for the trees. Whereas once upon a time, you could get away with something like: 

The reasons for going to war in Iraq remain the subject of intense debate. 

Or perhaps, with a sting in the tail for the real villains of the piece: 

The reasons for going to war in Iraq remain the subject of intense debate ... in the salons of Europe. 

Nowadays, this stuff simply suggests you aren't really trying, and perhaps might have been better advised to write a column about NASA's Mars Orbiter or something lame like that. Poking fun at the Euro-weenies is as dead as Scooter Libby. The so-called "second-wave realists" have long taken a new tack. For these folk, it has been seen as better to cast doubt on the various reasons given by the US Government and their proxies for going to war, but to infer darkly that it doesn't really matter, since ‘your' preferred reason would have been, by itself, enough: 

Initial justifications based on the presence of WMD or highly speculative links between al-Qaeda and the despotic regime have given way to wider rhetoric grounded in the language of liberty – an acknowledgement of the influence of the neocon way of thinking, although the polls suggest that few are listening. 

For my taste, I find all that a bit introspective, and suggestive of ill-disciplined inside the Beltway thinking. I'm aiming for something a bit more like ‘voice-over-intro-to-Lord-Of-The-Rings-films-meets-Stan-Zemanek', with just a touch of "run the bastards over" for the red-neck reader, lightly sprinkled with dust from the desert: 

While endless rounds of neo-liberal hand-wringing in the West on the subject continue unabated, the facts of the ground speak clearly and with impeccable logic. We are at war – and this is a war President. The discussion has simply moved on, even if the discussants have not.  

Stand back, I tell you – genius at work! (Although I am a little nervous about using a word like ‘discussant'. It sounds a bit French, I think. We can come back to it later). 

Next, you need some ‘facts on the ground'. While too much local detail can get in the way of establishing yourself as a master of the Big Picture, a little dash of local colour is a high-impact way of implying that you've actually been to Iraq (which is, for reasons that should be obvious, far too dangerous and expensive to try doing for yourself). Something like this is far too simplistic: 

It turns out that many of the people in Iraq are very angry about one thing or another. 

And, if all you have is something like this, I would go re-think the whole concept: 

Religion may well play a role in determining events in Iraq. 

People read that sort of thing and start to think that they could work this stuff out for themselves. No, you want obscure facts, something that you really have to work to find, are highly specific and make no broader point whatsoever and are consequently of no use to anyone. You get extra bonus points for working in some kind of oblique reference to how much of a hard-ass hard-drinking Gonzo-livin' war correspondent you are. Something a little like: 

Soliders stare unflinching from their dust-rimmed goggles on the road to Baghdad airport, eyes alert for the telltale signs of ambush and the dreaded "IEDs" - military parlance for ‘improvised explosive device' (and, rumour has it, is also the name given in the Baghdad Travelodge bar to a drink made by dropping a shot glass of Tabasco into a tall glass of tequila and sculling it).  

That bit works quite well, doesn't it? (In this context, the term ‘military parlance' means I read about it on Google News. ‘Rumour' means I just made it up. Isn't this fun?). 

Historical context is also important to a good Iraq column. Get it right and, with any luck, readers will credit you not just with knowing history, but being historically significant. Get it wrong, and people will scratch their heads and wonder what the hell you are talking about. For example, something like this is way, way too obscure: 

The moment was replete with the echoes of history, with Black Hawk helicopters hurtling towards Basra tracing a route once utilised by raiders attacking camel-trains bringing spices and trade goods to the court of Nebuchadnezzar in 577BC, only ten short years after the dynastic succession of the third era of the Persian kings. Not once, not twice, but many, many times, men with violence on their minds had travelled this route, and not once, not twice but many, many times, their blood had been split at the behest of leaders in far off lands.    

If you end up with stuff like this in your column, people will assume that you are some sort of over-educated specialist and therefore can't have anything to say that is of value to the common man. (Also, it will make people suspect that you are gay). Get rid of it immediately.

A better approach is to stick with what people already learned, preferably in high school.  A lot of people think that you need to be a professional historian to properly contextualise historical events, but you don't really; what you need is a few basic facts and then a lead-in back to the here-and-now. Try something like this: 

Events in Iraq touch us all, because Iraq used to be Mesopotamia, a civilisation that generations of Australian school-children have grown up with. You can't end the troubles in Iraq in a shallow gesture, but you can make a ziggurat from an upside-down ice-cream container, a margarine container and a match-box, and to a child trying to understand why Daddy has to go to war, that counts for a lot.  

Let's take a quick break to re-read that. Wow. That's powerful stuff. I have to tell you, my eyes are a little moist.    

Last of all, you need a profound observation about the wider state of play. You might go for something like: 

Sometimes, world events really make you think. The world is a big, complex place, and not everyone in it is like us. Wars can start for many different reasons - some good, some bad.  

But I think that's a little over-intellectualised for our purposes, wouldn't you agree? It needs pepping up including, ideally, a reference to American "blood and treasure" and, perhaps, something about the way in which the "global war on terror" has led us to learn as much about ourselves as the terrorists. Perhaps also let the tone get a bit less formal, so you can connect with the knuckle-dragging proles that actually read this stuff, and include a joke, even: 

So while the bombs explode in Iraq and people get shot and beheaded and stuff, it is for those of us who are left behind to try and make sense of this sorry mayhem. Not for us the comfort of being tucked into the conceptual certainty of military service, with its fixed moral compass and small but statistically significant chance of having an unexpected festival meal during an unannounced visit by a senior civilian official. No sirree. The war in Iraq may go on for many years, yet it is the war within our own hearts that is the hardest one of all to fight. And yet fight we must.  

(Wow. Sometimes - and I am not joking here - sometimes I really scare myself with this stuff. Where does it come from? Deep breaths).  

So that's my view on Iraq. I think that you'll agree that, although the issues are complex, I totally kicked George Bush's lily-livered ass. How much does that guy suck, huh? 
 

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