Buckley v. Kristol on Iraq

William Buckley says It Didn’t Work:

One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that “The bombing has completely demolished” what was being attempted — to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior ministries.
Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans.

Glenn Greenwald welcomes Mr. Buckley to the reality based community. Should we praise Mr. Buckley for finally noting the obvious?

Talkleft reminds us that:

The current violence in Iraq was anticipated before Bush decided to take down Saddam. As these articles suggest, Bush and his confederates knew what would happen and they went ahead with their invasion plans anyway. They are responsible for this mess.

Note that Mr. Buckley fails to acknowledge that the reason many of us opposed that stupid decision on March 19, 2003 was that we anticipated it would lead to disaster. Mr. Buckley’s own rag (the only accurate description of the National Review) tarnished folks who opposed this decision as traitors. Of course, we will not get an apology for this crowd.

Then again – William Kristol thinks we could have won this thing had the Bush Administration made a serious effort.

Update: While Kristol is now saying we should have had a bigger war effort in Iraq, back in 2002 he had suggested that the cost of this invasion would be at best 0.2% of one year’s worth of GDP. So I was trying to think of something to say about this fellow’s positions beyond the obvious – that he is clueless. Fortunately, Digby has said it for me.