The Iraq war will go down as one of the most disgraceful chapters in military history, and will be a constant blemish against the honor of the United States.
It will stand as naked, commercially motivated aggression against "the wrong enemy", at a time when the US was under attack, from a quarter that was wilfully ignored, in a quest for the fulfilment of "higher aims".
Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Feith, Cheney, Perle, Rice - these names will go down in history clad in shame and dishonor. Bush's name will be forever tainted, as it becomes clear that he was the addleminded tool of the above schemers.
It is, truly, a black chapter. Take a look across the Atlantic, at Blair, and you can clearly see what this misadventure has led to. The man has aged fifteen years in the last two. He has to go to bed every night, knowing full well that he made one of the worst decisions ever in the history of his country. Eden's catastrophic invasion of the Suez canal used to have that standing, but no longer.
As the prevarications and obfuscations of the administration become clearer, there is only one possible conclusion when it comes to the invasion of Iraq: it was mindnumbingly dumb.
Sure - I could hunt for smarter words with which to express myself, but there you have it: it was mindnumbingly dumb.
We will live with the repercussions of this disastrous decision for decades.
Cheney knew what he was getting into. That's why he consulted with the historian Victor Davis Hanson, on the topic of unpopular decisions that were later vindicated by history. Cheney was convinced, from his Realpolitik POV, that securing the Middle East to ensure a steady supply of petroleum to the West, was of paramount importance.
His catastrophic miscalculation was to allow himself to be deluded by Chalabi (remember him?) The price we are paying, and will continue to pay, will forever haunt the memory of Dick Cheney, idiot at large.
Bush? Pity the fool. Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot. They'll have him back shortly.