09-05-2007, 05:23 PM
Right on, Jester. I agree with almost every conclusion you have reached. I am old enough to remember how McNamara's Mathboys and a few whiz-kids left over from the Kennedy years (eg McGeorge Bundy) snowed LBJ into thinking the Vietnam conflict was capable of successful resolution. The case was never made for invading Iraq to begin with and the consequence of uncontrolled violence between Sunni and Shia completely predictable. This has been held in check for centuries by various tyrants such as Hussein and the Shah of Iran. I have no clue what should be done now that we have created the vacuum. The problem seems insoluble to me. Certainly none of our presidential candidates seem to have a clue. Most of them were snowed by the briefings preceding the war into voting to support it. Anyone who had the judgment at that time to withhold support certainly deserves kudos, although that does not mean they would have much of an idea how to bring it to an end.