Re Learning From Iraq, Editorial 11/26/2006

To the Editor:

There is an alarming near-consensus among pundits that the main lesson from the Iraq disaster is a "catastrophic planning failure, which left too few troops in Iraq..." Implied is that enough force could have made the folly of the war itself irrelevant and crowned the invasion and occupation of Iraq with "success". Looking at the tragedy of Iraq (and Palestine and Lebanon), it's hard to come up with a more dangerous and futile formula than an even more unrestrained application of US military force. The lesson from Iraq is the one learned at great cost in Vietnam and that the Bush Administration has tried to erase with the doctrine of preemptive war. Even overwhelming military superiority has severe limits, and bad choices to go to war have very bad outcomes.

Leon Wofsy