Thirteenth, that leaders of countries such as Japan, Spain and Poland who took the plunge and sent forces to Iraq would not suffer enfeebling electoral or political losses as consequences of doing so.

Fourteenth, that Iraq's oil could be made to flow again on a lucrative scale within a few months of the invasion, and pay for everything from conquest to reconstruction.

Fifteenth, that the occupation of Iraq and opening up of its oil fields would rapidly cause global oil prices to drop back into the range of $20-$25 a barrel, if not even lower -- breaking the cartel power of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries led by Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Sixteenth, that the toppling of Saddam would demoralize the Palestinians and break the back of the second Palestinian intifada, thereby ending the wave of suicide-bombing massacres of Israeli civilians.

Seventeenth, that the occupation and remaking of Iraq would quickly boost the prospects for stable, pro-American democracies throughout the Middle East. (The prophets at the American Enterprise Institute, home to Lynn Cheney and, since he left the Pentagon, Perle, were particularly hot to trot on that one.)

Eighteenth, that the CIA and other primary elements of the U.S. intelligence community who could not be bullied or manipulated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz and their acolytes in the Pentagon could be ignored forever.

Nineteenth, that L. Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority (heavily staffed by neocons, almost all of whom have since prudently fled back to suburban Washington) could ignore the intelligence assessments and policy recommendations of the U.S. Army on the ground.

Twentieth, that last spring's crackdown on Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr would be quickly and easily carried out and that he would enjoy no significant support from the wider Iraqi Shiite community.

Twenty-first, that any insurgency in Iraq would be carried out solely by embittered old Saddam loyalists and evil outside agents, none of whom would be able to operate for long because they would find no significant support among the wider Iraqi community. (Krauthammer was particularly enthusiastic about that one.)

Some liberal hawks, such as Joshua Micah Marshall, David Remnick, Michael O'Hanlon, Kenneth Pollack and even Thomas Friedman, have actually had the grace to admit they were mistaken. But none of the stalwarts of the Washington Post editorial page has yet done so. The Post has published no editorial accounting of how it allowed itself to be misled by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and others on WMD and everything else involving the war until its conscience awoke over Abu Ghraib. The newspaper's editorial board cannot shake its Stockholm syndrome, perhaps because it is a voluntary hostage. And naturally, not a single neocon has confessed error.

What a contrast to Vietnam! Within two and half years of major U.S. ground troops being committed, President Johnson had already dropped Defense Secretary Robert McNamara overboard. Then Johnson himself decided he had to abandon his hopes of reelection. That decision, 36 years on, looks like a paragon of self-denial, patriotism and nobility in the interest of genuine peace compared with the crass and desperate efforts to cling to power of the current White House incumbent.

The only senior official to fall in the Bush administration, strangely enough, is the only one appointed by President Clinton: former CIA Director George Tenet. None of those who endlessly pressured or disparaged the U.S. intelligence community or cooked up the flow of now utterly discredited intelligence estimates for Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith have even been demoted, let alone lost their jobs. The almost unknown Harold Rhode, the longtime right-hand man of serial plotter Michael Ledeen at the AEI, continues to whisper his sweet nothings into Rumsfeld's ear as his advisor on Islamic affairs. And Ledeen, Rhode's mentor and partner as far back as the days of the Iran-Contra fiasco, has been openly trumpeting the deadly dangers of Iran and the need to take preventive action against it in the National Review Online.

Recent Stories