Your Opinion: We must not be fooled again

Dear Editor:

A personal recent submission contained in its introductory remarks a reference to the numerous, profound difficulties left on this president's plate by President George Bush. I expected some commentary and was not disappointed.

Intervening events in Iraq have only demonstrated the monumental, strategic error that was made when Republicans terrified us into the war in Iraq. The same voices that convinced us that this war-of-choice was necessary are trying to repeat that performance. We must not be deceived so easily again.

As Vice President Cheney and friends trumpeted the need to attack Iraq, they made promises, offered multiple reasons and fundamentally created the situation we are watching today. Their hubris that they could essentially heal a wound that is 1,300 years old is the core failure in their entire decision-making process.

The relationship between Sunni and Shia has varied between a troubled peace and outright violence for a millennium. Sadaam was a "bad man" but that measurement alone as a justification for war would compel us to strike North Korea and very likely another dozen nations immediately.

When a can of food spoils, opening it will only irrefutably confirm the fact. Sadaam's Sunni regime was the seal on the can. Its opening created a Shia crescent from Iran to Syria. In our solitary dependence upon a military solution, we unsettled the entire Middle East and now are in the unenviable position of trying to sustain a government that our pride created in the conflict begun in 2003 while not endangering deeper relationships among the dominant Sunni, the sect prevailing through most of the Middle East.

What President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Billy Krystol, John McCain and all the rest presumed was at core beyond a military solution in the first place. Conventional troops on the ground are not strategically practical by any measure. Bombing without accurate targeting and intelligence is equally foolhardy. This is what we reaped by shooting-from-the-hip in 2003. The project was basically doomed strategically from day one.

And there were no WMD. There was no relationship between Al-Qaida and Sadaam, none. The introduction of that group only occurred after we attacked the country. The war lasted much longer than six months. It definitely did not pay for itself and did not resemble anything we could call cheap. Iraq's current government is only remotely identifiable as a democracy. Strategically? What a failure.

At least Hillary has admitted her voting error.