No plan of battle survives the first contact. You adapt, you change. The key goals are the removal of the threat of Saddam Hussein.

What is so hard about that?

And good point about how the MSM (but missing the Euros) tried their best not to look like they were paid informants of Hussein. Anyone remember the crocodile tears over the sanctions?

I would have to agree that Iran’s regime is indeed hollow. That’s why it pains me all the more that we invaded Iraq based on false pretenses. Let’s look at what it has done for Iran:

1) Overstretched our military. Iran knows that we cannot invade them while we are tied down in Iraq (and don’t forget Afghanistan!). At best, all we could muster is a few token airstrikes, which would only have the effect of strengthening their hold on the populace. Our empty “sabre-rattling” only emboldens them.
2) We’ve turned Iraq from an enemy to a future ally of Iran. If only Bush would have known the difference between Shiite and Sunni…:)
3) The draining of our financial reserves has steadily weakened the dollar, increasing the relative cost of oil and given Iran a huge financial boost, which they can leverage to finance their surrogates (Hamas, Hezbollah) to further destabilize other parts of the middle east.

If only we had had a true conservative in the white house during this time. They would have smashed Afghanistan (and captured Osama!) then been able to put massive pressure on Iran to stop their nuclear programs, not to mention the Pakis…

This is an interesting theory. Can you point to any evidence that Saddam was paying off the Nytimes, Fox, CNN, etc. to give the Bush admin. a pass to invade his country?

To me this is the same old Vietnam-based argument (“if we only would have stayed there long enough (and had many more of our soldiers killed without advancing any true national security objectives!) all would have turned out fine”).

We should all expect more out of our President to a) make sure that wars fought based on true national security interests (like WWII and Iraq I) and that b) they are fought with a minimum of competence.

I fear that if we base them only on the ability to stay long enough to win, American power and standing in the world will only continue to decline.

“Pearl Harbor Bombed! FDR kills 4000 of our soldiers in mistaken attack on Bolivia. ‘I thought they were Bolivians.’ US mired in trillion dollar Bolivian civil war and occupation, with no end in sight. 6 years later, Tojo no closer to being brought to justice.”

Of course, with FDR, if he had not been impeached, he would have resigned in disgrace. American was a different country back then – we believed in accountability.

Discuss.

This fiasco of an operation in France, which is killing women and children and destroying schools and hospitals, would never have happened if FDR had simply offered to meet with Hitler and Tojo without preconditions. After all, what problem can’t be settled fairly if we just sit down and talk sincerely to the other side?