All of the cabinet appointments suggest that Bush is in charge of policy. But this clearly absurd. George Bush, despite much talk to the contrary, is an intelligent man. However, he is no policy wonk, and by most reports disdains detailed discussions of government programs. Karl Rove is reputed to be both knowledgeable and interested in details of policy, but there are only 24 hours in the day. He can't do everything. Will the cabinet members be expected to anticipate Bush's desires and come up with plans to suit? Most, it appears, are like Snow who will be asked to sell a Social Security plan that he has had little hand in developing. So who is in charge of policy in the 2nd Bush administration?

So who is in charge of policy in the 2nd Bush administration?

Jeebus? :)

"He can't do everything."

Thank fucking God.

This debate will require a decade and a few memoirs to solve. I tend to believe accounts that say Rusmfeld wanted to leave the Iraqi army intact, purging only the worst of the Baath leadership, and then leave rather quickly. It was Powell and State that got us into the occupation. The reason why Rumsfeld was opposed to a bigger force was that he was not in favor of occupation.

This is not to say that Rumsfeld was right and Powell and State all wrong. The Iraqi army might have collapsed immediately as the Shia conscripts dropped their weapons and went home. The looting surprised Rumsfeld and may indicate that he didn't expect the collapse.

The other issue that annoys me is the ignorance of all the pseudo-military experts who complain about force size and do not acknowledge the logistics problems. We did not have the Saudi Red Sea ports that we had in 1990. Kuwait was too small for the army that the "experts" thought they wanted. Read Tommy Franks' book for a few facts about what happened.

The alternatives, as I see them, is to do what we did the way we did it, including the stab in the back by Turkey, or not do it at all. The latter option would have involved packing up and going home from the Middle East as the sanctions were over for all practical purposes. We would now have Saddam with his oil and his new French friends running interference for him and with his nuclear program back up and running by now.

Read about the French Navy shadowing US carriers during the no-fly campaigns in 1998. Bush was in Texas and the French were clearly allies of Saddam doing surveilance for him so he could try to shoot down a US plane.

" Rice -- a realist -- is replacing Powell -- who was the administration's only liberal internationalist."

Can a person be a realist, while being as woefully uninformed as Condi Rice has been?

Isn't a realist someone who reads the footnotes?

Mike K. writes: "Kuwait was too small for the army that the "experts" thought they wanted. "

That only applies if the troops were brought in and staged prior to the invasion in March of 03.

It certainly does not apply if they come in over the course of weeks or months, after the initial invasion, but during and after "major combat operations".

And, of course, it would have helped if they hadn't pissed off Turkey.

And it also might have helped had we taken out Zarqawi's camp in the Kurdish area first, giving us some hundreds of troops pre-positioned in the north.

the stab in the back by Turkey Posted by Mike K

Ah, the old stab in the back ploy. It wasn't the Bush regime's incompetence, it is France, Turkey, Germany, Russia, and all those others who made Bush launch an illegal war will poor preparation.

You keep using that word realist. I
don't think it means what you think it means.

Drezner,

At the end of the day, neoconservative ideologues (such as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and Feith) and de facto neoconservatives (Bush, Rice, Goss and most Republicans nowadays) are the same. After all, they uphold the same objectives and strongly support one another in order to attain them. It is true that the former are more ideologically engaged than the latter. Yet, all of them are equally determined in their pursuit - and that is one of the reasons why they scare the heck out of me.

I'm not sure about Condi Rice's realist credentials. It her 2000 Foreign Affairs article, she argued that foreign policy must be infused by both power and ideology.

Like neocons, she was arguing that the US should use its power to achieve its favored ends.

Rumsfeld and Cheney ( Rummy was Cheney's mentor. Powell also started in the Nixon administration as a White House fellow) are Nixonian realists on foreign policy, not neoconservatives.

Nixon, who was an adept poker player, is remembered for his strategic moves in triangulating the USSR and North Vietnam but it's important to recall that he was making the very best of a weak hand and was forced to do a lot of bluffing. This was the height of hard-headed realism.

If Nixon had had the geopolitical position in 1969 that George W. Bush has today I can easily see Nixon using some very, very, tough policies abroad - not unlike those his proteges are now employing.

Dear God in Heaven, talk about revisionist mendacity.

I tend to believe accounts that say Rusmfeld wanted to leave the Iraqi army intact, purging only the worst of the Baath leadership, and then leave rather quickly. It was Powell and State that got us into the occupation. The reason why Rumsfeld was opposed to a bigger force was that he was not in favor of occupation.

This is just so bizarre it's hard to begin cataloging the failures of reasoning. Yes, Rumsfeld opposed a long term occupation - because he uncritically accepted the assurances from the INC, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Feith that not only could the exiles take over but that US troops could be drawn down to a few tens of thousands in a token garrisson as soon as six months after the invasion.

To turn this around and blame this on State whose Arabists and nation building teams specifically quoted the Rand study ratio that indicated several hundred thousand soldiers would be needed, and to blame Powell him of Pottery Barn breakage fame and the doctrine called you know, The Powell Doctrine, that calls for overwhelming force to be applied rather than minimalistic deployments is a traversty.

That people like this can talk themselves into absolving Rumsfeld who at the very best allowed himself to be manipulated by ideological advisors and aides and to blame Powell and State the very adovocates of cumbersome high manpower intensive style nation building is just so wrong that is pales.

Yet it shows, too many in this nation are still in denial. They will until the price get's higher. That it will get higher is the sad price the rest of us will pay for getting these loudmouth morons to finally shut up when it all comes crumbling down around their ears.

"Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay were right. Their primary thesis in America Unbound is that, despite what people say about neocons or realists, the person who's clearly in charge of American foreign policy is George W. Bush."

It is absurd to claim that a man who could not name the leader of Pakistan 4 yrs ago could, or would have a desire to, independently develop a foreign policy. That a man who had the money and family connections to fly all over the world and chose not to go anywhere would all of a sudden be able or willing to independently develop a coherent foreign policy. Support George Bush if you must, but don't ever delude yourself into thinking he is not being led and guided by Cheney and others.

Oldman wrote, "Yet it shows, too many in this nation are still in denial. They will until the price get's higher. That it will get higher is the sad price the rest of us will pay for getting these loudmouth morons to finally shut up when it all comes crumbling down around their ears."

Why would they shut up even then? Wouldn't they blame the problems on somebody else and demand increeased autnority to deal with the crisis?

Oldman, what you are seeing is the neocon pundit exit strategy in action. The groundwork is being done to blame failure in Iraq on liberals, the media, and eventually Republicans who weren't "tough" enough.

"The reason why Rumsfeld was opposed to a bigger force was that he was not in favor of occupation."

This administration chose the where when and how. We were not invaded by Iraq. What happened to hope for the best and plan for the worst? I mean who thinks Powell was in favor of occupation instead of a quick happy ending?

Amazing, how the title of 'realist' is applied only to those who follow an ideology that the DNC would approve of....

The best part of this is, now that we have a SCLM reduced to obedient dashboard doggies, and a citizenry whose memory retains no more than two news cycles, it won't take more than a couple weeks for Powell to be blamed for the whole fiasco.

Though, I'm also impressed with the trial balloons being floated by RW blogs and commenators that blame the soldiers. According to this latest theory, soldiers who insist on having sufficient armor and armament to fight, who refuse to be send on suicide missions, and who dare to ask Rumsfeld about it, are all traitors undermining the war effort.

Sigh. So many scapegoats. So little time.

I'm shure glad that President Bush had the guts to invade Irak after Sadam attaked us on 9-11.

"Though, I'm also impressed with the trial balloons being floated by RW blogs and commenators that blame the soldiers. According to this latest theory, soldiers who insist on having sufficient armor and armament to fight, who refuse to be send on suicide missions, and who dare to ask Rumsfeld about it, are all traitors undermining the war effort."

posted by: Learnin' to Love Armaggedon

Kerry vs Bush.
McCain vs Bush.
Cleland vs whatshisname.

It's the first time, and it won't be the last, as long as it works so well.

I tend to believe accounts that say Rusmfeld wanted to leave the Iraqi army intact, purging only the worst of the Baath leadership, and then leave rather quickly. It was Powell and State that got us into the occupation.

Could you point me to one of these accounts? I don't recall hearing anything of the kind.

If you want to understand whats wrong with todays republican party, just read Bithead's comments. You have to wonder how much kool-aid was consumed to erase the obvious facts that completely contradict his point.

Rumsfeld and Cheney ( Rummy was Cheney's mentor. Powell also started in the Nixon administration as a White House fellow) are Nixonian realists on foreign policy, not neoconservatives.

For Cheney at least, the operative word is used to be. Certainly no one who was remotely a realist would push the agenda he has post 9-11. He's been so devastatingly wrong in every aspect of post-war Iraq that I'm amazed he can show his face in public. Wait ..

Come and see the post election bitterness inherint in the system!

I seem to remember the exact same voices on these boards whining about the disaster that Afghanistan had become about a year ago. Then the elections. For a group of critics who have been so stunningly wrong on every prediction of impending doom, you guys sure arent shy.
Isnt it about time to get the goal post moving gear set up for the post Iraqi election whining?

The whole 'Afghanistan grows drugs, what a disaster Bush created' meme worked so well, maybe I can offer some suggestions along those lines. How about, "Sure Iraqi turnout was higher than America's was, but look at the illiteracy rates! Disaster!" or "The first Arab democracy sure, but did you know Iraqis dont recycle!"

Get those goalposts ready to roll boys.

Dan, W in charge of foreign policy?? Let's ignore those strings Cheney is tugging on and say, ok, you're right. Doesn't this beg the question: What is that foreign policy?

Aside from the demand for absolute personal and institutional loyalty to the detriment of "reality based" information and analysis, it would seem to be a simplistic notion that all our international problems are solved if everyone thinks and acts like we do. Like one big happy Midland, TX after the Lone Ranger has cleaned out all the bad guys.

Tragedy.

Mark writes: ""Sure Iraqi turnout was higher than America's was, but look at the illiteracy rates! Disaster!""

Iraqi turnout was higher under Saddam, too.

I've often heard the proposition that the most important election in a democracy is the first one. I would suggest that the most important election in a democracy is the next one (whether first, second, third, or 100th).

The first election in Afghanistan was (and the first election in Iraq will be) ensured by the American military, to its credit. But how about the next one?

I don't know a lot about the Muslim world, but it seems to me democracy has only succeeded in it (to the extent it has succeeded at all) when backed by a secular military, which, paradoxically, must be prepared to overthrow an elected government that it believes to be too Islamist.

Afghanistan and Iraq don't seem to have an indigenous secular element that has the power to prevent a radically religious government.

This is where liberal internationalism and traditional realism coincide, in regard to Iraq: The conditions for secular democracy don't exist, and we can't create them; further, we can't absorb Iraq as an American colony.

The problem with neo-conservatism is that it seems to suggest everyone is inherently a secular democrat. It's a dogma hard to accept, unless it developed from a Trotskyite past...