A real "fixer-upper"

"April 19 issue - In early June 1920, Gertrude Bell, the extraordinary woman who helped run Iraq for Britain, wrote a letter to her father on some 'violent agitation' against British rule: '[The extremists] have adopted a line difficult in itself to combat, the union of the Shi'ah and Sunni, the unity of Islam. And they are running it for all it's worth ... There's a lot of semi-religious semi-political preaching ... and the underlying thought is out with the infidel. My belief is that the weightier people are against it --I know some of them are bitterly disgusted -- but it's very difficult to stand out against the Islamic cry and the longer it goes on the more difficult it gets.' In fact, the 'agitation' quickly turned into a mass (mostly Shia) revolt. British forces were able to crush it over three long months, but only after killing almost 10,000 Iraqis, suffering about 500 deaths themselves and spending the then exorbitant sum of 50 million pounds. After the 1920 revolt, the British fundamentally reoriented their strategy in Iraq. They abandoned plans for ambitious nation-building and instead sought a way to transfer power quickly to trustworthy elites."

Fareed Zacharia writes in Newsweek on the Administration's last chance to repair the mistakes they've made in Iraq (and Afghanistan) thus far.

"The United States does not face this dilemma yet. The trends that I outlined are just beginning and are not irreversible?yet. Washington has a final window of opportunity to end the myriad errors that have marked its occupation and adopt a new strategy.

"The tragedy is that so much of this was avoidable. The Bush administration went into Iraq with a series of prejudices about Iraq, rogue states, nation-building, the Clinton administration, multilateralism and the U.N. It believed Iraq was going to vindicate these ideological positions. As events unfolded the administration proved stubbornly unwilling to look at facts on the ground, new evidence and the need for shifts in its basic approach. It was more important to prove that it was right than to get Iraq right."

I can't tell from the article whether or not Zacharia is optimistic or not. I guess he's neutral. He wants to think the administration can fix their mistakes, correct their course. We will have a major catastrophe on our hands if they don't. But when have they ever repaired a mistake? They don't make mistakes.

After all, Bush's "decisiveness" is the gift that keeps on giving.