Americans Realize They Were Duped And Are Angry - Why Can't Democratic Politicians Admit The Same And Get Angry Too?

I recently sent this to the Bull Moose , which is loosely affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council, in an effort to get them to rethink their Iraq strategy - with no chance of success, of course.

"You ask whether the American people will be inclined towards a party that is re-litigating the causes for the Iraq War. It seems they are already doing so , individually, in the privacy of their own minds. That is why you see the poll numbers continue to drop. Average Americans are coming to the conclusion that they were wrong. And they are doing so without any real leadership moving them in that direction.

I would urge you to rethink the following from you piece -

'In the post-9/11 environment any American Administration would have erred on the side of vigilance concerning Sadaam's threat. That may not have been wise, but it wasn't a case of lying and massive deceit.'

You must distinguish between the post 9/11 world and the post afghan War. After deposing the Taliban and putting al Qaeda on the run we were safer than we had been at least before the Khobar Towers and Cole bombings. We would have been even more so if we had pressed our advantage rather than diverting resources in preparation for the Iraq invasion. While many in the Clinton Administration were concerned about the Saddam threat, few if any advocated invasion. And the information generated by the Blix and Al Baradei inspections after Bush came in made clear to any impartial student of the subject that he had no serious weapons capacity, conventional or otherwise. Moreover he was not a threat to us. The only people who had anything to fear were his neighbors, and they were not very exercised.

During the whole run up to war I could not help but reflect on a similar run up more than a century earlier, one that you would be familiar with. We declared war against Spain for many reasons, but few of them were articulated publicly. Then, as now, it was difficult to have a rational discussion because neither the government or the press were interested. They wanted war.

The American people are increasingly opposed to this war because they are coming to realize what some of us tried to say before it began. There is no threat. We cannot win, if that is defined as a stable democratic Iraq. When we leave, the region will be worse for our effort and our putative adversary, Iran, will be stronger and emboldened. As people slowly realize that they will cry out for re-litigating because they feel duped. I only wish Democrats who voted in favor of the resolution would join in and say they were duped also. It is hard, yes, but it is better than perpetuating this fiction."