You're right. Powell was more accurate than anyone else, and the reason I believe is because he is a history buff. He actually studies history. Thus, he sensed, even if he didn't know for sure, that there was no way to introduce democracy to a culture that simply couldn't support it; a culture where tribal affiliation holds sway over all life; where people marry their cousins to "keep it in the family".
I tell you what gets me about all of this - it's how incredibly blind we were ourselves. I remember a while ago criticising the Veep (who I otherwise admire greatly) for continuing to say that everything was improving in iraq when clearly that was not the case. It was clear the strategy was broken and still many on our side continued to support it - essentially imo because it became "politically" or socially impossible on *our* side to disagree with the adminsitration. If you didn't like something they were doing, and you said it, you were pounced on for being a "moderate" or a troll or whatever.
Now reality, and an election, has caught up and the finger pointing is all over the place. All of a sudden Bush is 'tired' and he's betraying us over immigration and it's the "death of conservatism" and so on.
We need a dose of common sense. The Iraq strategy was a failure. It wasn't just the adminstration but the supporters of the administration (i.e. *us*) that didn't ask the right questions in time and didn't have the guts to do anything about it.
It doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, Bush II is still a great president but he made a major error over how to deal with Iraq - let's admit that and get on with it.
P.S. I agree re Powell, though his obstructionism, once it was clear we were going in, didn't help either.