Someone with more time and mental acumen should write this post. Here I go anyway.
I found two very interesting posts regarding Iraq. The combination really demolishes the (crazy, really) idea that W's strong suit is National Security.
The first (through TAPPED) is
this op-ed piece by James Webb, former secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration.
In it he says (besides whacking Kerry; which is ok with me, by the way):
Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region that never has known peace. Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its presence.
There is no historical precedent for taking such action when our country was not being directly threatened. The reckless course that Bush and his advisers have set will affect the economic and military energy of our nation for decades. It is only the tactical competence of our military that, to this point, has protected him from the harsh judgment that he deserves.
The other post is from the very excellent Dreyfuss Report on Tompaine.com.
The entry in question concerns how the current dynamics in Iraq really point towards a breakup of the country into three zones: Kurdish in the north, Sunni in the center, and a fundamenatlist Shiite nation in the south. Beyond the obvious rationale for these three different nations to divorce, there's a much more powerful one: oil. The Kurds have it in the north, and they want it, and Sistani and the Shiites have it in the south, and they want it too. The Sunnis get the shaft. Dreyfuss points out that there has been meetings between Sistani and the Kurdish leadership, and, as far as their interests are concerned, this breakup is a no brainer.
I know shit about the complicated geopolitical mess in that part of the world, but I would assume that the destabilizing effect of such breakup would be nasty. Turkey would not stand for a Kurdish Republic on its border. An Iranian-Iraqi Shiite fundamentalist alliance would be have a very unsettling effect with Arab countries in the Gulf. This would not be pretty, I think
Now, none of the above was hard to predict. Everyone knew that this breakup was a very real possibility post-Saddam. Everyone knew as well that the real enemy was Osama, and that the Saddam and Osama link was bogus.
It's hilarious (in a dark, brooding way) that W thinks of himself as a National Security guy. This moron knew nothing about Foreign Policy four years ago, he leaned zippo, and. in the meantime, he seriously weaken American interests everywhere.
I don't see Edwards having any trouble with this issue. Heck, Spongebob Squarepants would make W look bad.