The verdict on ideas is not how well they perform in one's imagination, but how well they perform in the actual world. The intellectual fathers of the Iraq war refuse to rethink their core ideas. Instead, they rather ungratefully blame the only man who put their ideas into practice.
David Frum told Vanity Fair, "the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything." Richard Perle maintains: "Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that." Michael Rubin complained to the magazine, "people trusted him, people believed him. Reformists came out of the woodwork and exposed themselves."
When Rubin finishes weeping over the poor "reformists" who exposed themselves, might he find time to shed a tear or two for the dead and wounded servicemen?
I don't very much sympathize with the neoconservatives, but in fairness to them; Actual neocon true believers did not play a large role in the Bush administration's foreign policy and the administration has taken many actions that are in contravention of their theories.
Not that I think what they advocate would work. I think the Bush administration has seen its successes where it stuck to realism and its defeats where it flirted with neoconservatism.
So you know how some people got all weirded out because then PNAC said the whole thing about a new Pearl Harbor in 2000.
"Further, the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a
new Pearl Harbor." -Rebuilding America's Defenses
Seems like Eliot Cohen still wants another 9/11
"The best news is that the United States remains a healthy, vibrant, vigorous society. So in a real pinch, we can still pull ourselves together. Unfortunately, it will probably take another big hit. And a very different quality of leadership. Maybe we'll get it."
