The Point: What Bush got right offers clues for Obama

Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 9/27/2009 | Mark Bowden

[Saije]

Three years ago, the war in Iraq seemed lost.

There was little disagreement that the Bush administration, having toppled Saddam Hussein with relative ease, had badly bungled the aftermath. Tank units led by Gen. Tommy Franks had led U.S. forces triumphantly into Baghdad. There had been a ceremonial toppling of Hussein's statue, and the presidential "Mission Accomplished" news conference . . . and then the real war started.

It was a mistake seemingly made in every war in human history; commanders enter superbly prepared to fight the last war, not the one they are in. It turned out that the war in Iraq was not about seizing territory but battling a stubborn, murderous, and determined insurgency embedded in the Iraqi population.

President Bush made a courageous decision in the summer of 2006 to reverse direction, but not the reversal sought by Congress (including then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden), the American public, the overwhelming majority of the press (including this newspaper), and even most of his own military advisers. Instead of cutting our losses and pulling out of Iraq, as we did in Vietnam, Bush doubled down. He invested more troops and, more important, embraced an entirely new strategy.

And Bush was right. What had happened beneath all of the politics was a small revolution in war-fighting philosophy, championed and implemented by an unlikely military leader, Gen. David Petraeus, a soldier/intellectual molded as much by the think tank as the battlefield. He calls the movement his "Counterinsurgency Nation," and it has rewritten the way America fights...

Now President Obama must decide whether to let this new generation of battle-tested soldiers apply what it has learned to Afghanistan.

[Saije]

I think Obama will find --if he's at all capable of being honest with himself if not with us-- that Bush was right about a lot of things.

[Admin Moderator]

Got a link?

[Saije]

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/20090927_The_Point__What_Bush_got_right_offers_clues_for_Obama.html

Sorry about that

[Republic of Texas]

To learn, one first must understand that he does not have ALL the answers. Obama is too arrogant for this thought, he cannot learn, and thus is doomed. Unfortunately, he's taking the US with him.

[expatpat]

Actually, the Army did not screw it up. As a sop to Powell, Bush let the State Dept. run the post-war Iraq and they screwed it up.

[DrDeb]

“I think Obama will find —if he’s at all capable of being honest with himself if not with us— that Bush was right about a lot of things.”
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I couldn’t agree more!

Unfortunately, Obama lacks President Bush’s ability to do the right thing despite the ‘disapproval’ it will engender. Like Clinton, Obama cares more about ‘approval’ than he does the security of our country.