Bush and Iraq

From JFH

Apparently, there are those who do believe we need to fight an all-out "holy?" war to stop Islamic fascism, so, they would argue, the Administration's latest rationale for going to Iraq (to spread democracy and freedom throughout the region) makes sense.

(Aside: Actually, this was the neocons' argument all along, even before 9/11, for taking out Saddam, but American and world public opinion would never have supported an invasion solely for that purpose. Then 9/11 came along and the Administration tried to link Saddam with Al Qaeda and all of the sudden gave far more creedence to intelligence reports about WMDs than it had before.)

For the sake of argument, let's assume we DO need to fight an all-out war to stop Islamic fascism. What on earth makes anyone think that this Administration can do that effectively, given its record so far?

CLEARLY, the Bush administration was woefully and dangerously unprepared to do so when it went blustering into Iraq with not enough troops, no plan for what to do after Bahgdad fell, and certainly with no serious long-range plan to "win" that kind of war.

These people literally -- and I remain incredulous of this -- thought that Ahmed Chalabi would solve it all for them -- Iraqis would bow down to him and the U.S. and a democracy would magically materialize that would then be the beacon of freedom for the entire region. And we have a president who proudly doesn't bother himself to learn anything about any of this, but who thinks he has been touched by God and so therefore makes decisions based on his "gut" rather than any kind of reason, and so he charges us into this mess.

There have been several good articles that have come out in the past week that are definitely worth a read for anyone interested in this question of what is going on in Iraq right now and what the prospects for success are.

But to really get the context of Bush's messianic self-image, read the Suskind article from the New York Times Magazine first:

Without a Doubt


Then there is this three-part series by Michael Gordan:

The Strategy to Secure Iraq Did Not Foresee a 2nd War

Poor Intelligence Misled Troops About Risk of Drawn-Out War

Debate Lingering on Decision to Dissolve Iraqi Military


Then from the Knight-Ridder newspaper team that has done some excellent reporting from Iraq comes this series; the link is to the Miami Herald, which you have to subscribe to, but it's free (and you might as well arrange your Florida election news source early!)

Iraq reconstruction efforts overcome by ongoing violence

Iraq's future path uncertain because of insurgency

Post-war planning non-existent

The question of whether Kerry would have gone into Iraq in the first place is moot; the real question is does a new reality-based foreign policy team have a better chance of getting this thing back on track than the bunch that fucked it up in the first place? And even if the answer to that question is that Kerry has no chance to salvage it because it is FUBAR, should we "reward" this president with another term of office for doing this?