Mea Culpa
There is only one way America can hope to salvage a measure of respect and some semblance of a short term constructive result in Iraq. Unfortunately it is the one path George W Bush is utterly unlikely to take.
He must say:
We were wrong!
The Iraq War was a mistake. My belief at the time that it was compelled - a war of necessity - was wrong. In retrospect, even if there had been Weapons of Mass Destruction, other, wiser, ways of confronting that problem could have been, and should have been, sought.
War with Iraq was dangerous in prospect. The way we proposed to go about it was both dangerous and foolish, and then we botched the execution nearly beyond belief. Our actions forfeited the good opinion of the world, first - and critically – with regard to the soundness of our judgment, but secondly with regard to confidence in our good intentions.
As architects of our policy and our actions, I am asking for the resignations of the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Advisor, as well as all those on their staffs. I reserve judgment, for the moment, on the Secretary of State. The officials I have mentioned serve at the pleasure of the President and with the advice and consent of the Congress. This is not the case, however, with the Vice President, but he too has lost my confidence, and I ask him and his immediate staff to resign as well. Should he not comply, he should know he will no longer have a role to play in this administration, and will be cut absolutely out of any and all matters that do not explicitly fall to his office under the Constitution.
It may well be asked why I do not resign. It is principally because a change in direction, policy and personnel of the magnitude required in this moment can be effected best if the President remains to superintend the process.
I have asked my father to come on board as an advisor.
Iraq has been brought to the brink of Civil War, a situation that serves no one’s interests except Al Qaeda’s. To meet this reality I ask the world to join under a United Nations mandate to provide a force to keep the peace in Iraq as the Iraqi’s struggle to find their way. America stands ready to participate, but the force will be, and must be, genuinely international, for only then will the Iraqis have any confidence it will withdraw when it has served its stated purpose.
Under this administration, America has distanced itself from the international community to a far greater extent than at any time since the end of the Second World War. It was exactly the wrong thing to do. What we have done since we assumed power in 2001, severely accelerated - but hardly initiated - that distancing. For far too long America, under several previous administrations, backed away from the one body which held any chance of being accepted as ‘neutral’ in a world where contentions arise from many quarters, and will continue to do so.
After 9/11, the interests of the whole developed world understood a common purpose of great urgency. It was essential we confront the problem in concord, not in contention. However flawed the vessel, the United Nations offered the best chance for the developed world to engage the post 9/11 reality in a way that holds reasonable hope for success. While there is no denying the United Nations over the years failed of our fondest hopes, the constructive response should have been to work with a will to realize those hopes anew. Instead, the developed world – led by the United States - retreated from a purposeful engagement for a number of years. Now we reap the rewards of a profoundly ill judged course. It is entirely possible that a concerted effort by the whole developed world, led by the United States - bringing to bear all the talent and resources at our command - might have forged a renewed and powerfully constructive United Nations. Now we are forced to undertake that task under the pressure of a severe crisis in Iraq, a crisis precipitated in large measure by the foolishness of this government.
Central to that foolishness was a doctrine of pre-emptive/preventive war declared in the National Security Strategy of 2002. The pre-emptive idea, as it has historically been understood, and accepted, by the international community, represents something no one can really object to. In the simplest paradigm, the bad guy goes for his gun and the good guy gets to draw faster and shoot first. When matters go beyond that, the doctrine opens to a very uncertain and dangerous prospect. As a general principle, any state, or any leader, is empowered to attack any other solely on suspicion. That suspicion may arise with good reason, but it can also be understood as a pretext for the pursuit selfish interests. And of course, with any given leader, suspicion may result from poor intelligence, poor judgment, and ultimately, from paranoia, or even madness. Carried beyond that particular part of the idea already widely accepted, the doctrine of pre-emption/prevention actively sows chaos and disaster in the international community. Which again, serves no one’s interests beyond Al Qaeda’s.
For that reason I am announcing the doctrine of pre-emptive/preventive war as stated in the NSS of 2002 will henceforth extend only to the matter of preemption as it has been widely accepted as part of a broad international consensus.
Over the next few weeks and months we hope to forge a new foreign policy: one which reflects the wide collegial principles engaged throughout the arc of the Cold War. It is how my father engaged the First Gulf War, and I am pleased he will be by my side to offer his help and advice. What else we may do, and how we will go about it, will emerge in consultation with our allies, and with those societies around the world that decide to join us in the conviction that, in a world that fights with Weapons of Mass Destruction, there is more wisdom in cooperation and creative engagement than in conflict. To Al Qaeda we propose you have nothing to offer your people but pyrotechnic nihilism, and stagnation in a life that holds none of the opportunities that open to people in the modern world. Those who chose such counsels of despair we will seek to contain - to the best of our very considerable abilities - until time, their own shortcomings, and the excellence of our accomplishments combine to move them along newer paths of greater hope.
Thank you, and we humbly pray to so conduct ourselves as to be worthy of God’s blessing, now and into the future.
8:50:02 PM 
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