Stanley Kurtz:

The underlying problem with this war is that, from the outset, it has been waged under severe domestic political constraints. From the start, the administration has made an assessment of how large a military the public would support, and how much time the public would allow us to build democracy and then get out of Iraq. We then shaped our military and “nation building” plans around those political constraints, crafting a “light footprint” military strategy linked to rapid elections and a quick handover of power. Unfortunately, the constraints of domestic American public opinion do not match up to what is actually needed to bring stability and democracy to a country like Iraq.

Actually, the underlying problem is that George W. Bush did it anyway. Our strategy
was dictated by Bush Co. political considerations (and not sober analysis), but somehow its the American people’s fault?

More from TPM, here and here.