Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
from Andrew Sullivan (who is more than a little excitable, so take this with a grain of salt):
STRATFOR ON THE WAR: Like many other smart analysts, the pro-war Stratfor military experts have concluded that the war to control the Iraq insurgency or to erect democratic institutions in Iraq has been lost (subscription required).
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Not only is Sullivan excitable, he (intentionally?) misstates the actual point of the article he quotes from. Its not that the US lost the opportunity to win the "war to control the insurgency or create democracy," it's that that wasn't the war we were actually there fighting (which has actually been rather successful), but the admin appears to have come to mistake its spin for a real goal, thus creating problems for itself (because the "spin" goal for the war was inherently contradictory and unachievable and, worse, irrelevant to US interests). A better "money" quote, IMHO:
"We did not and do not agree with the view that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. It had a clear strategic purpose that it achieved: reshaping the behavior of surrounding regimes, particularly of the Saudis. This helped disrupt the al Qaeda network sufficiently that it has been unable to mount follow-on attacks in the United States and has shifted its attention to the Islamic world, primarily to the Saudis. None of this would have happened without the invasion of Iraq.
As frequently happens in warfare, the primary strategic purpose of the war has been forgotten by the Bush administration. Mission creep, the nightmare of all military planners, has taken place. The United States has shifted its focus from coercing neighboring countries into collaborating with the United States against al Qaeda, to building democracy in Iraq. As we put it in May: "The United States must recall its original mission, which was to occupy Iraq in order to prosecute the war against al Qaeda. If that mission is remembered, and the mission creep of reshaping Iraq forgotten, some obvious strategic solutions re-emerge. The first, and most important, is that the United States has no national interest in the nature of Iraqi government or society. Except for not supporting al Qaeda, Iraq's government does not matter.""
Or: the war actually went pretty well in achieving it's original strategic purposes, but this sideline bullshit at some point came to center stage and it's all just a big cockup in both conception and execution.
Not sure which version is more damning to the Bushies, but there you are.
