1. Rejecting the policy of containment
<snip>
Containment as a policy certainly worked against the Soviet Union, has worked with North Korea and others. It's not a pleasant thing to have to administer, but containment is a lot cheaper than the alternative, as we're finding out now.
2. Flawed strategy
<snip>
All those who believed this was going to be the catalyst for some kind of revolutionary change in the region got more than they bargained for and didn't understand the region, the culture, the situation, the issues or the effect that what they were about to do would have in those areas.
3. False rationale
The third mistake was one we repeated from Vietnam: thinking we had to create a false rationale for going in to get public support. The books were cooked, in my mind. The intelligence was not there.
<snip>
4. Failure to internationalize
We failed, in the fourth mistake, to internationalize the effort.
<more>
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1085868608510&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724excerpts from Zinni's CDI speech. not too long