Bergen on Iraq

Peter Bergen, whose myopic NY Times Op-Ed following the London attacks enraged me, seems to have regained enough sense to file this piece at Mother Jones, recapping the administration’s policies between 2001 and 2003, and the foolish decision to go after Iraq.

What we have done in Iraq is what bin Laden could not have hoped for in his wildest dreams: We invaded an oil-rich Muslim nation in the heart of the Middle East, the very type of imperial adventure that bin Laden has long predicted was the United States’ long-term goal in the region. We deposed the secular socialist Saddam, whom bin Laden has long despised, ignited Sunni and Shia fundamentalist fervor in Iraq, and have now provoked a “defensive” jihad that has galvanized jihad-minded Muslims around the world. It’s hard to imagine a set of policies better designed to sabotage the war on terrorism.

Funny, that’s what some people (deemed unpatriotic, if I recall) had warned of back in 2003, and what a majority of the U.S. public now thinks.