Wow, what a depressing report about Iraq....

In a bleak National Intelligence Estimate, the government's top analysts concluded Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for jihadists, who are growing in number and geographic reach. If the trend continues, the analysts found, the risks to the U.S. interests at home and abroad will grow. (Read the NIE's key judgments -- PDF)

"We also assess that the global jihadist movement -- which includes al-Qaeda, affiliated and independent terrorist groups, and emerging networks and cells -- is spreading and adapting to counterterrorism efforts," concluded the estimate, compiled by leading analysts across 16 U.S. spy agencies.

[link]

It seems to conclude that the Democrats are right in that the war in Iraq has fueled jihadist and that the Republicans are right that we shouldn't withdraw from Iraq. So basically we screwed up big time in invading Iraq, but now we're stuck there.

Ah, but see Gud, President Bush doesn't believe the report, so there's really nothing to worry about.

I feel I should note once again that what Bin Laden et al wanted to accomplish with 9/11 was to provoke an armed response from the West, so as to fuel the rise of jihadism. Seriously, it was like he was waving a big red flag and the Bush Administration was a particularly stupid bull.

Yeah. Apparantly he knows something that every single US intelligence agency does not.

Ah, but see Gud, President Bush doesn't believe the report, so there's really nothing to worry about.

Or, worse, he believes half of it - the part that means we're stuck there.

Ah, but see Gud, President Bush doesn't believe the report, so there's really nothing to worry about.

I have to admit to a certain lack of confidence in the President's opinion on foreign policy. Now if we were talking about how to clear brush, well, that would be different.

I have to admit to a certain lack of confidence in the President's opinion on foreign policy. Now if we were talking about how to clear brush, well, that would be different.

I never wanted to be President; I wanted to be...a lumberjack!

If only it were true. *sigh*

Driven by an impluse I really can't explain, I just started reading Robert Bork's Slouching Toward Gomorrah. It's oddly soothing, to read the batshit crazy and think back to a time when living in your own wholly-constructed nonsense world actually constituted a liability on the national political scene.

BTW, was anyone really surprised that Bush finds the details concerning "outrages upon human dignity" vague in the Geneva Convention? The man was president of his fraternity AND in Skull & Bones! He's probably doled out and (and this is the only thing that gives me some small feeling of satisfaction) received treatment that most normal people would consider outrages upon human dignity. Thankfully, John Oliver finally acknowledged that bit of Bush's personal history on the Daily Show the other night.

Because neocons are hauling out the "hindsight is 20/20" argument on Iraq, I think that it is worth repeating that this outcome was widely predicted by people who had even a rudimentary understanding of the issues. This included well-known conservative politicians whose expertise was available to the president, had he ever decided to take his job seriously.

Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs ... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different -- and perhaps barren -- outcome.

"A World Transformed," by George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, 1998.