Anne Applebaum lowers the boom 

Anne Applebaum lowers the boom

Anne Applebaum isn't by any means convinced that things in Iraq are hopeless, or even that they are going to get worse. A lot could happen, and the outcome is to a great extent up to the Iraqis--moreso than when Saddam was in charge.

But this awareness doesn't prevent her from criticizing the Bush administration:

"The truth, of course, is that, for all its talk of universal human rights, this is not an administration that actually perceives itself as a part of something greater than the United States. For all of its talk about spreading American values to benighted foreigners, this is not an administration that even likes foreigners. It never occurred to me that American troops would arrive in Baghdad and have absolutely no idea what to do next, or who was important, or who was on their side. But then, I hadn't realized that the Pentagon leadership had no interest in or knowledge of the Iraqi people. I thought these were cold warriors, whereas in fact they are narrow-minded American nationalists, isolationists turned inside out."

I keep coming back to the fact that in the 2000 campaign, Bush practically said he didn't know or care anything about any foreign country--with the possible exception of Mexico. What was planned as a self-congratulatory invasion of Iraq as part of the reaction to 9/11 is just the other side of the same coin.

(TNR Online via Kevin Drum)