Leadership

I'd like to see some of that great leadership on foreign policy that Democratic foreign policy leader Joe Biden keeps telling Democrats they need to provide. I recognize that Democrats are out of power, so that leadership is going to mostly be rhetorical and political leadership. It's going to provide the foundation for actual leadership if Democrats ever manage to obtain power. A good start would be to begin to make people understand - and shift the terms of the debate - to the place where it needs to be, in reality. In that reality, Iraq is not going to "turn a corner." Things are not, as Joe Lieberman keeps claiming, getting better. It's a disaster.

People need to understand what Matt Stoller understands:

It's quite clear that Iraq is the signature issue, not just for this cycle, but for decades. It is a mess that we must manage, and it will probably be messy for a long time, and that mess is going to come home in many unexpected and dangerous ways.

I still don't know why we invaded Iraq. I still don't know what the architects hoped to achieve, or how they hoped to achieve those goals. Like The Editors I don't have any idea how to unshit the bed, but it isn't just going to go away.

Henley writes:

Starting with the buildup to this needless war in Summer 2002, it’s been four years of waste, folly and lies. And failure. Lots and lots of failure. Now like some athritic slots junkie the remaining rump of American hawkery dreams of the one more war that will make good their losses to this point. Of course, they’re really our losses. Compounding.