So many criminally stupid decisions were made after 9/11. I remember listening to W shortly after the attack, the “you’re either with us or against us…they hate us for our freedoms” speech, and thinking that we were in bad trouble. As bizarre as it seems I doubt W had any real concept of the Sunni/Shia divide, or much of anything else foreign policy related as he pulled resources out of Afghanistan to attack the wrong country. Maybe Bush the elder did, seems doubtful given that he appears to have made no effort to steer W back on course. It’s just possible that had W listened to voices like Gen. Shinseki and not listened to the Neo-cons, Iraq might have gone better; tragically we’ll never know. Before Desert Storm even there was much talk about “getting over” Vietnam, much effort to unlearn the lessons we should have had branded on our souls; that wars spin off on their own courses, that disinformation and self deception set in early, that foreign “adventures” are fought in somebody else’s home, and friend or foe, they aren’t leaving while we are, making the imposing of OUR will difficult if not impossible short of all in, horrific violence on our part, and terrible cost to all.