In his new book Unintended Consequences, Peter Galbraith argues that the Iraq experiment, at least relative to Bush's stated goals, is doomed to fail.

Though the economic crisis of the past few months has understandably gotten a great deal of attention, it will take a solitary incident even of modest impact to refocus our nation on the greatest issue of our time — the threat radical Islamist forces pose to the world.
 
This struggle was announced quite abruptly to our nation on a beautiful September day more than seven years ago, despite the warnings throughout the Clinton years, from the first World Trade Tower attack, to embassy bombings to an attack on the USS Cole.
 
President Bush responded with determination by first bringing down two tyrannical regimes, the Taliban in Afghanistan, a regime dedicated to terrorism, and then Saddam Hussein in Iraq, whose regime represented one of the most brutal dictatorships on the planet.
 
But neither war went as scripted — Iraq turned into a civil war, and Afghanistan and its impact on Pakistan even now remain in question. The Iraqi people in particular, along with our military, have paid a heavy price and Bush and his administration have been criticized, in many instances fairly, for the inept and at times cavalier handling of this serious business.
 
Peter Galbraith, former U.S. Ambassador to Croatia and long-time American diplomat, has been a strident critic of the Bush administration. He wrote first The End of Iraq, which highlighted the mishandling of the post-invasion management of the war. And now he has published Unintended Consequences, a second installment that takes into account the surge and offers some sound though not particularly profound advice on how to proceed from here.
 
Let me start with the major point of his book, which is that the Iraq experiment, at least relative to Bush's stated goals, is doomed to fail. Galbraith, along with Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Biden, is one of those who believes partition is inevitable. The Kurds have already created their own de facto nation and the Sunnis and Shiites will never consent to be governed by one another.
 
Galbraith adds that the surge has been successful, but only short-term. The long-term future of Iraq will depend on what happens after the United States withdraws its troops, which it should do as soon as possible, Galbraith argues. He supports Senator Obama's timetable and observes with some satisfaction that even Iraqi President Malicki has jumped on the Obama express.
 
Galbraith makes a few other points that are worth heeding. National Review years ago reported on the attempted assassination of some third world dictator and observed that it had all the characteristics of a CIA operation — everyone in the room was killed but the intended target. It is hard sometimes not to view our government in this light.
 
Galbraith reminds us that the Bush administration showed a cavalier arrogance about what a post-invasion Iraq would be like by sending incompetent and barely seasoned staff to Baghdad as if they would be governing Peoria, not a country famous for its sectarian bloodshed, its complex political dynamic, and its potential for destabilizing the Middle East.
 
If half of what Galbraith reports is true, and it probably is, then his book is another indictment of the Bush administration's gross neglect in managing Iraq. How such men as Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz masterminded such a debacle is hard to fathom, until we remember the handling of Vietnam by the best and brightest Democrats and begin to appreciate the hubris that great power creates in flawed, arrogant men.
 
It is to Galbraith's credit that he does not question the motives of the Bush administration, but that hardly excuses what he and dozens of other reporters and government officials have concluded was a badly conceived and executed operation. Galbraith knows pro-democratic Iraqis and he concedes that Bush and his administration were sincere in their desire to sow democracy and liberate the country. So I take his criticism more seriously than that of ideologues who interpret every Bush action in the most negative way and who cannot give him a single benefit of the doubt.
 
Still, Galbraith is a partisan. He is a Democrat, son of John Kenneth Galbraith, and his political tendencies creep into his analysis. Let me mention just a few examples.
 
1. He claims that Bush sought to link 9/11 to Iraq, which is a gross exaggeration if nothing else. The government did what it should have done — it investigated potential ties and not once was a serious claim made in any public discourse that I recall (and I followed it pretty closely) that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. Why Democrats insist on saying this I can only guess, because it is demonstrably false and was never proposed as a critical reason for taking down the Saddam regime.
 
2. He claims that America's credbility abroad has been damaged, but offers among other reasons the Supreme Court election decision of 2000 — suggesting that the court acted from pure political motives. Democrats need to get over 2000. Our inability to close the deal in both Iraq and Afghanistan is far more relevant to our credibility and long-term world stability. Introducing another partisan rant just distracts from the issue at hand.
 
3. He gives the surge little credit for calming the situation in Iraq, but instead attributes the change to three factors: the Sunni rebellion against an arrogant and violent Al Qaeda presence, the effective division of Iraq by religion, minimizing the opportunity for sectarian violence, and the decision by Moqtada Al Sadr to reign in his militia until the United States leaves Iraq.
 
All of this might be true, but it is telling that Galbraith finds it coincidental that the surge simultaneously occurred as these developments unfolded, when the obvious fact is that the commitment of Bush, McCain and Petraeus to see the surge through sent a message that we would stand by those who fought Al Qaeda, would not allow Sadr to run wild, and would engage those who perpetrated sectarian violence.
 
None of this is to suggest that we have won the war. Galbraith is right that the relative calm in Iraq (I emphasize the word relative) may or may not last. Nor do I suggest that the success of the surge vindicates Bush or the decision to invade Iraq. That the long oppressed Shiites are in charge is a sort of justice, but it doesn't guarantee anything relative to the future of the country.
 
But without the surge, nothing was possible short of ongoing civil war. The surge bought the Iraqis time, enabled the United States to seriously consider an end game, and saved countless lives that otherwise would have been lost.
 
Galbraith's final chapter is more a sketch than analysis, but it certainly bears serious reflection. America's temptation to resolves issues militarily has been problematic at best. Vietnam didn't work all that well and for that matter neither have the various wars fought in the Middle East — either through surrogates (Afghanistan in the 1980s) or directly (the wars against Iraq.)
 
Is our nation committed to fighting endlessly without a clear political strategy? If war is the extension of politics by other means, as Clausewitz argued, what is our political strategy beyond bouncing from one meeting to another, one reactive mode to the next? Is there not a Metternich or even a Kissinger who can make sense of how to position our country in the complex evolving world?
 
One has little choice but to conclude that the Bush team has not figured this out. I am not sure Senators Obama or McCain have either, beyond spouting meaningless platitudes, but I am prepared to concede the point to Galbraith — our nation needs to start smartly coupling our diplomacy and our military efforts or we will continue to see our sons and daughters sacrifice their blood in wars impossible to win without even the hope of stability.
 
Bush has done one great service — he has fought off our enemies for almost his entire term. Our nation has not suffered a major attack, which is due in part to luck, in part to intelligence, in part to taking the fight abroad.
 
But the next president faces a unique challenge. Clinton's diplomatic approach didn't stave off 9/11, and Bush's wars haven't bought long-term stability, much less victory. The next president will need to harness military strength and integrate it with diplomatic savvy. We have become a blundering giant. We need to be as shrewd and as quick and as flexible as the enemies we will continue to confront no matter what shades of blue or red we color the nation come Tuesday.