Hindsight and Foresight

"Victor Davis Hanson at National Review Online assesses the many reassessments coming in from all quarters on the wisdom, rightness or chance for success of our efforts in Iraq.

As his starting point, Hanson dismisses the great majority of negative commentary about Iraq that dwells on issues that are now entirely moot, and irrelevant. Most of the arguments, how many troops, how much to de-Baathify, what to do with the Iraqi Army, have been done and settled, and even the attempt to harp on these constitutes an implicit missing of the point that reflects ignorance, foolishness, or self or other deception.

He rightly characterizes many of these ruminations as not “second thoughts,” but third ones, as the practitioners of this form of politically opportunistic hindsight surely want to minimize any previous support. In reassessing, they dissemble and revision their history. They attempt to stir things up amid the current complexities of Iraq, and thereby dilute any possibility of their own responsibility for things as we see them now:"
Dadmanly