Failure
We are now in the third election cycle since 9/11 and the American people remain prey to a curious cognitive dissonance. Even in 2004 a majority had pretty nearly concluded the War in Iraq was a mistake, but, with a clear majority still favoring Bush on his overall handling of the War on Terror, we re-elected the President. In the intervening two years, a nearly 60/40 majority have consistently expressed a belief that Iraq was a mistake, but the President still scores significantly higher for his stewardship of the larger engagement. The curious thing about it is the War in Iraq remains overwhelmingly the major commitment of the administration's conduct of the GWOT: a commitment in treasure, and tragically, in the lives of young Americans. We remain at this late date still creatures of our fears, wanting very much to believe we have been well led since 9/11, and that our safety has been looked after at least well enough to stick with Bush and Co..
I propose to end this confusion by pointing out an inevitable consequence of their actions would be that, if there had been Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, they would be in Osama bin Laden's hands today.
It is undeniable.
They betrayed their most solemn obligations to our safely with their planning, and grossly compounded their errors in the execution.
Ultimately there were two reasons that persuaded the American people on the Iraq War. The first was the possibility Saddam Hussein might sell or give away Weapons of Mass Destruction to terrorists. In both reason and experience, it was a weak argument. Saddam had several years after the inspectors left to place those weapons in terrorist's hands, and there had been no evidence he had done so - not even giving them to the Palestinians, whom he nevertheless supported with payments during Intifada II. Bin Laden and Saddam were sworn enemies, and if we had been hit with Weapons "we knew Saddam had", we might not have Osama's address, but we had Saddam's. He had to know this, and we needed only to emphasize that the result of such a strike would be his certain elimination. NO QUESTION! All too delicious an outcome for Osama, and all too obvious to Saddam. What mattered about the threat was that Americans – hovering in an anxiety of fear and outrage after 9/11 (and well cultivated in that by Bush and Co.), found it plausible. That was enough. The second reason persuading us to the war was the idea that introducing a stable, democratic, pluralistic, prosperous regime, right in the heart of the Arab/Muslim world, would do much to achieve momentum in a direction beneficial to ourselves and to the people of the region. This latter reason was put forward by the administration before the war, but was hardly emphasized to the public at large in the immediate run up to launch. It was, however, the reason accepted by most of the country's opinion elites, including those who might normally have opposed going to war with Iraq in the first quarter of 2003. In the aftermath, however, it was offered as the raison d’ être for nearly everything: a kick-start for what the administration proclaimed to be the ‘core strategy’ for engaging Islamic Radicalism.
With both of these causes for action, Bush and Co. manifestly and incontrovertibly failed to act in a manner consistent with vital American interests. They betrayed us all, and thereby forfeit any claim to our trust.
You cannot invade Iraq and assume such Weapons of Mass Destruction as there are will fall into your hands like fruit from a ripened vine. You must go in prepared to win fast and then lock Iraq down as completely and thoroughly as possible, sealing its borders. The regime we were driving from power now would have every reason to sell or give away weapons to terrorists. An Iraq roiling in the fog and frictions of war offered an ideal opportunity for WMD's to be transferred to terrorists and spirited out of the country. The historical record incontrovertibly witnesses that they planed for, and succeeded in, winning fast, but did not plan for what our national security absolutely required. If there had been Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, the terrorists would have them. The only thing that saved the President (and us!) is that Iraq had no Weapons of Mass Destruction in the first place. But that is not what the administration believed. By their own understandings they failed utterly.
If your 'Grand Strategy' is to produce a stable, democratic, prosperous, pluralistic Iraq to serve as a template for transforming the whole Arab/Muslim world, then you must first produce civil peace. Without that NOTHING ELSE is possible - NOTHING. For that reason you have to go in fully prepared to establish civil order in Iraq. The President has described the conflict with terror as the defining struggle of this century. Whether it took three hundred thousand, as General Shinseki proposed, or five hundred thousand, or more, you had to succeed. NO EXCUSES! And yet their plans for postwar Iraq explicitly failed to provide for the force it would take to achieve civil order. The only saving grace was that the initial failure in planning, however crippling, might have been remedied. But instead there has been an almost unredeemed circus of blundering and corruption, whittling us down to the point where our only options appear to be staying in the frying pan (stay the course!) or leaping into the fire. In this they failed not only their own strategy, and American national interests, but the Iraqi people as well.
With respect to both of their causes for action in Iraq the American people see failure - failure which opened us to short term catastrophe and long term disaster. Trust them still further? Trust them any longer with the defining struggle of the coming century?
Sadly, you do not need to fool all of the people - some of the time or all of the time - only a majority of those who vote. If we do not get them in this election cycle, yielding at least one House of Congress willing to use the power of the subpoena, they will have gotten away with it. We will have defined the greatest failure of citizen responsibility in the history of the Republic.
Reduced at the last by folly and incompetence to a choice between the frying pan and the fire, we must throw them off, and once again become creatures of our hopes and not our fears. We must, at this late date, begin the long hard task of devising strategies that project both our soft and hard strengths, and seek to exploit the many real weaknesses of our enemies. We must engage on our terms, not theirs.
7:54:27 PM 
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