Another Sad Reminder: Bush Lost the War

Massive, coordinated car bomb attacks in Baghdad. The loud right-wing Obama haters will no doubt jump on this to argue that Obama is losing the war in Iraq.  But that is not true.  Iraq was lost long ago and it was lost due to the initial failures of Bush and company.  Sullivan gets at some of this:

...But the surge failed in its core task: to create an environment in which the three major sects in Iraq could form a national government, a national army, and a stable balance between the three major centrifugal forces in the country and in Baghdad. Maliki's bid for a post-sectarian polity rests fundamentally on his claim to have restored some semblance of security. But how easy it will be for that semblance to be wiped out by violence of the kind demonstrated today.

From a Sun Zi perspective, the US, from the very get go, failed to understand the adversary as well as ourselves, and while perhaps initially taking the state intact, let that momentary advantage slip away with an overbearing occupation.

The Iraq war was ill-advised from the beginning.  It was based on false premises (WMD!) and driven by misinformation (which the movie "In the Loop" captured well).  The cavalier attitude of the Bush administration toward the loss of Iraqi life in the pursuit of their neo-con obsessions stands as a horrible monument of immorality.  And it has left a continuing tragedy for Iraqi people. 

But it is important for us to remember how it all started and why it has turned out so badly:

Bush lost the war.

Comments

[LTT]

Who "wins" a war?

[Confucian Socialist]

And when are you going to admit that this is Obama's war now --- he is continuing Bush's failed policies in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Both the supposed "withdrawal" from Iraq and the planned surge in Afghanistan (along with the drone attacks --- which are occuring as frequently as one a week, according to the New York Times) are taken right out of the Bush administration's playback.

Distasteful as may be to liberals, their President has embraced the agenda and tactics of the Bush administration. This is Obama's war now. Continuing to blame Bush for the failure of our foreign policy nearly a year after he stepped down is starting to look ridiculous.

[isha]

Same policies and agenda, better salesmanship...