Post-traumatic Iraq syndrome--by Christopher J. Fettweis (asst. professor, U.S. Naval War College)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-fettweis12jun12,0,6045569.story?coll=la-home-commentary

"The war is lost. Americans should begin to deal with what that means."

---snip---
"The endgame in Iraq is now clear, in outline if not detail, and it appears that the heavily favored United States will be upset. Once support for a war is lost, it is gone for good; there is no example of a modern democracy having changed its mind once it turned against a war. So we ought to start coming to grips with the meaning of losing in Iraq."

---snip---

"The battle for interpretation has already begun, with fingers of blame pointed in all directions in hastily written memoirs. The war's supporters have staked out their position quite clearly: Attacking Iraq was strategically sound but operationally flawed. Key decisions on troop levels, de-Baathification, the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the like doomed what otherwise would have been a glorious war.

"The American people seem to understand, however — and historians will certainly agree — that the war itself was a catastrophic mistake. It was a faulty grand strategy, not poor implementation. The Bush administration was operating under an international political illusion, one that is further discredited with every car bombing of a crowded Baghdad marketplace and every Iraqi doctor who packs up his family and flees his country."

K and R

It was motivated by corporate greed and secular bigotry at the highest levels.

One point that I took away from this is that if all of the prominent Republican candidates for president are supporting the war, then they are screwed, particularly McCain. That's why on the Democratic side it would be nice to see a candidate who has had some purity on the issue of the war and not have to come up with excuses why they initially support the war. I think the Republicans will paint it, possibly with some merit in the minds of Americans, that if these Democrats were "fooled" or "misled" about the war, what might they be "fooled" or "misled" by if they were president? I am at this time undecided, but I think this question merits some thought.