Greg Sheridan's interview with Richard Armitage, in today's Australian online, contains some nuggets. Armitage, outgoing US Deputy Secretary of State and 'best friend' of Colin Powell, speaks of regretting poor outcomes in Iraq and the Middle East peace process. Which would not necessarily be inconsistent with the actions the Bush administration has taken in the region (though it suggests things might have been done differently).
He then goes on to state:
The biggest regret is that we didn't stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot.
So does much of the planet. It isn't just an issue of whether use of force was legal, or even morally right.
It's much bigger than 'just' admitting that there were no WMDs, or that Bush had his eyes on Iraq from the beginning (O'Neil's book).
It impugnes the entire neo-con foreign affairs project.
As a question of dry realist analysis, was an opportunity to take a profoundly different path, combining stick (the destruction of Al Qaeda, which was the main game completely sidelined by the personal crusade in Iraq) with wise and constructive diplomacy, wasted? An opportunity, seen through a purely pragmatic and realist prism, to make the US and its interests more secure instead of just justifying a single aggressive orthodoxy?
