Fukuyama's Take on Iraq

Francis Fukuyama has good op-ed on the Iraq war in this morning's New York Times. Here's a lengthy excerpt:

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks,
Americans would have allowed President Bush to
lead them in any of several directions, and the nation
was prepared to accept substantial risks and
sacrifices. The Bush administration asked for no
sacrifices from the average American, but after the
quick fall of the Taliban it rolled the dice in a big way
by moving to solve a longstanding problem only
tangentially related to the threat from Al Qaeda - Iraq.
In the process, it squandered the overwhelming public
mandate it had received after Sept. 11. At the same
time, it alienated most of its close allies, many of whom
have since engaged in "soft balancing" against
American influence, and stirred up anti-Americanism
in the Middle East. . . .

Are we failing in Iraq? That's still unclear. The United
States can control the situation militarily as long as it
chooses to remain there in force, but our willingness to
maintain the personnel levels necessary to stay the
course is limited. The all-volunteer Army was never
intended to fight a prolonged insurgency, and both the
Army and Marine Corps face manpower and morale
problems. While public support for staying in Iraq
remains stable, powerful operational reasons are likely
to drive the administration to lower force levels within
the next year. . . .

We do not know what outcome we will face in Iraq. We
do know that four years after 9/11, our whole foreign
policy seems destined to rise or fall on the outcome of a
war only marginally related to the source of what befell
us on that day. There was nothing inevitable about this.
There is everything to be regretted about it.

I don't necessarily agree with everything Fukuyama writes in this op-ed, but these three paragraphs pretty closely track my own opinion on the Iraq war.