[Defiant]

I was for taking out Saddam, and continue to believe it was the right next step, after Afghanistan. I don't say I told you so about that. I say, and said at the time, that Iraq had to be part of a broader strategy to go after Islam (not militant or extreme Islam, but Islam, for it is Islam itself that is the problem). What became clear in the months after Iraq was conquered was that there was no strategic vision for dealing with Islam. That would require dealing with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and would require calling Islam what it is, a plague on humanity. It needed to be attacked as an ideology the way America was anti-communist all those decades (until Obama). No one was concerned that we would hurt communist's feelings. But all we got from Bush on Islam was the "religion of peace" crap.

It required some ass kicking, some economic coercion, some persuasion of the intellectual kind, a decades long effort similar to the cold war to isolate the Muslims and bring them out of the middle ages. No one in the administration, with the possible exception of Rumsfeld, had that kind of perspective.

And we needed a strategic vision for dealing with the home front. Newt had a great article on that around 2005 or so. We needed someone who would call out the traitors, explain the course of action, give the press a hard time when it tried to propagandize the American people, and use the bully pulpit. Bush acted as if convincing people and defending his actions was beneath him. He let himself be dragged down lower and lower in the public's eyes until it became possible that people would actually look at a Muslim commie traitor like Obama and say "give him a try".

[CommieCutter]

What became clear in the months after Iraq was conquered was that there was no strategic vision for dealing with Islam. That would require dealing with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and would require calling Islam what it is, a plague on humanity.

I agree with that. In all reality the entire region needed to be dealt with but it's easy for me to say from the keyboard...