I consider it bungling from two perspectives. First, if we'd had our thinking caps on, we'd never have gone to the U.N. That was Colin Powell's idea and it was wrong-headed. Matters of American national security have no business being debated in the U.N. Second, if we make a decision to do something, then we should go for it with 100% effort. We clearly didn't do that in the U.N.
We were a country at the peak of our political and military power, with international sentiment leaning towards us after 9/11. We took that considerable cache of political capital and tossed it to the wind. There are two fundamental rules of diplomacy: 1) always leave yourself a way out and 2) always leave your opponent a way out. We did neither. As a result, we pushed our allies into corners from which they had no way out.
We now have a major rift with the EU, France, and Germany. We have alienated Russia, with whom the U.S. had made incredible strides after 50 years of cold war. We have weakened Tony Blair, who has been our strongest ally, to the point that he most probably won't be re-elected.
Do I call it bungled diplomacy? Hell yes. For a country that is at the peak of it's power, we should have been able to figure out a way to take out Saddam and get everyone cheering us on. As American patriots, we all should be demanding nothing short of that. |
