Iraq taught us nothing (Salon article)

[Solly Mack]

The U.S. establishment's acceptance of a possible war with Iran shows that the folly that led to Iraq still rules Washington

"Nov. 6, 2007 | The U.S. could attack Iran in the next few months.

Let's repeat that. The U.S. could attack Iran in the next few months.

The fact that this sentence can be written with a straight face proves that the Iraq debacle has taught us absolutely nothing. Talk of attacking Iran should be confined to the lunatic fringe. Yet America's political and media elite have responded to the idea of attacking Iran in almost exactly the same way they did to the idea of attacking Iraq. Four and a half years after Bush embarked on one of the most catastrophic foreign-policy adventures in our history, the same wrongheaded, ignorant and self-destructive approach to the Arab-Muslim world and to fighting terrorism still rules establishment thinking."