It comes as no surprise that Michael J. Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter and admitted Rumsfeld admirer, would defend the Iraq war in an attempt to salvage his tarnished credibility and neoconservative ideology (???No Cause for Hypercaution??? Nov. 5). But it is shocking that Gerson claims his intention is to learn the right lessons from the Iraq war. You can only learn from history if you have the guts to ask the tough questions and to question fundamental beliefs. If Gerson was serious about learning from Iraq he would have tackled substantial criticisms of Bush???s war in Iraq that serious critics have repeatedly raised. Such as: can democracy be established in the Middle East through an unprovoked, U.S. military intervention and occupation? Has the war in Iraq made the problem of violent Islamic extremism in the world better or worse? Or, has ignoring international opinion and intelligence produced better or worse foreign policy decision-making for the U.S.? But Gerson doesn???t want to be troubled with such probing, hardball questions. Instead he frames the Iraq issue using overly simplistic criticisms of the war and invents a new, exaggerated threat to American foreign policy: a so-called ???hyper-caution???. The risk of a complete paralysis of U.S. foreign policy in reality doesn???t exist. It is not espoused by any serious challenger for the Whitehouse in 08. Gerson is just trying to paint some absurd, counter-scenario to portray his old boss???s reckless actions in a better light. In doing so Mr. Gerson shows his true aim is only to justify and defend the core neoconservative rationale that misled us into Iraq. Unfortunately Gerson???s work does a great disservice to our country which does need to learn real lessons from our ordeal in Iraq.
Nicholas Bianchi
Chicago, IL
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