On the morrow of the Iraqi defense minister warning of "endless civil war", two must-reads:

Michael Scheuer on the myths of American foreign policy, and Justin Raimondo on the new distancing of neoconservatives from the war, quoting William Buckley that "one can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed." Of course, it failed because a) Iraqis have not mustered the civil fortitude to put aside differences, and b) we haven't been "serious" enough in our efforts there, per Bill Kristol.

And, of course, we could foresee none of this. It's not our fault that 2500 Americans are dead and half a trillion dollars of our money is gone. We were robbed! Tricked! (Meanwhile, this shows how stupid we have become. "Stop fighting! Or ... or ... or we'll leave! And let you fight!")

But, had we spent many more American lives and dollars, things might have been different. Hopefully we've learned this lesson. As Fukuyama's new book indicates, we have learned many lessons for "future nation-builders."

Neocons are the coolest! It takes some real resiliency to shrug off the money and lives. But, I suppose it took Edison thousands of tries to perfect the light bulb. Right? We can scarcely be expected to get the liberation-nation-build-ally thing right the first few times. Next time, it'll be different. Next time, we'll spend more. Kill more. Invade sooner, with less cause and more force. Yeehaw.