BOTCHED OCCUPATION
From "How We Botched the Iraq Occupation":

Everywhere I've traveled recently in Iraq I've run into Americans, ranging from generals down to privates, who ask perplexedly, 'What are we Americans supposed to be doing here? Are we going to take over this place and stay here forever?'
. . .
We have got into this Iraq job without understanding what we were tackling or why. Not one American political leader fully realized at the outset how formidable our Iraq commitments would prove to be. There was no idea, at the beginning, that Americans would become involved in a project to take Iraq completely apart and put it together again in wholly new patterns.

From "Americans are Losing the Victory in Iraq":

Never has American prestige in Europe been lower. . . . All we have brought to Iraq so far is confusion backed up by a drumhead regime of military courts. We have swept away the Ba'ath Party, but a great many Iraqis feel that the cure has been worse than the disease.

Actually, I changed the words. See the original in this Jeff Jacoby column. These are from 1946 and showed the same enlightened, intelligent, forward-looking thinking regarding post-war occupation work that the Democrats and the press are demonstrating today. That Germany thing worked out fine, perhaps it's a little too early to expect a robust republic to spring from the Mesopotamian ruins. Heck, it took America from 1775 to 1789 to get our republic going, and we weren't nostalgic for 7th century culture.