Neocon Regrets

In the new issue of Vanity Fair, several neocons come out with their regrets about the war in Iraq and their contempt for George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Interestingly all the neocons interviewed appear to be Jewish, except perhaps for Frank Gaffney, an acolyte of Perle's, who apparently writes a weekly column for Jewish World Review.

This appears to be an example of, "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." I find it particularly galling, that the person most responsible for the Iraq debacle, Paul Wolfowitz, goes on leading the World Bank. This is much better for him than the Presidential medals that his colleagues Tenet, Franks, and Bremer got, while he deserves much worse.

In a way, I feel sorry for Bush, because he is such a midget in the job of President. He has neither the education nor the moral character for the job. If he is not stupid, then he is lazy, which is worse. However, he didn't want to the war on terror President, he wanted to be the education president or the tax-cut president. The first real war he ran into, Vietnam, he ran from. We should not have a coward leading America when it is attacked by anybody.

Of course, I don't really believe that there is a "war" on terror, any more than there is or was a "war" on poverty or a "war" against organized crime. We did start a war against Iraq, and we appear to be losing it.

We'll see what happens in tomorrow's elections. While it may be something of a referendum on the war, it does not allow people to vote on those who might be the best leaders to get us out of the war -- Chuck Hegel, John McCain, Joe Biden, John Warner. We don't need a plan so much as we need intelligent, courageous, well intentioned, patriotic leaders. They are sadly lacking in this our hour of need. Of course, Iraq is a little war, and we can walk away from it without too much loss to the US, although it will have been devastating for Iraq.