"What is Perle saying? In what sense were our military objectives in Iraq not aligned with our political objectives?"
Again, we didn't have good enough advance intelligence on the ground in Iraq because we didn't know who was the real political opposition and who we should align ourselves with. We didn't know if Sistani and others were with us or against us.
So our political objectives became unclear as to whom are allies were within Iraq, in order to more quickly turn over the country to the friendly opposition of Saddam, who might be oriented to having a democratic gov't.
Again, we didn't have good enough advance intelligence on the ground in Iraq because we didn't know who was the real political opposition and who we should align ourselves with.
Ok that makes sense, thanks.. The "political" in these political objectives refers to the politics of Iraq, not of the U.S. I had been imagining that Perle had in mind a domestic (U.S.) political-military disconnect, which would have been an intriguing claim.
This is a minor nit-pick, but under this interpretation, Perle's first and second "lessons" are really two sides of the same coin.
I might add that complaining that we didn't know exactly to whom to turn the country over after we conquered it, is something of a luxury in warfare :-) I would think a historical survey would show that this sort of political/military disconnect is the rule rather than the exception. To complain that we didn't know exactly who was on our side, who would enjoy legitimacy, who to ally with, etc., is sort of like complaining that we didn't know the precise locations of all the enemies. It's true, but this criticism only goes so far. :-)