Iraq in a nutshell

Andrew Sullivan is an unabashed conservative. But he's a principled conservative who won't just blindly follow George W. Bush because Bush is a Republican and claims to be conservative. (I don't think Bush is conservative in any way, shape, or form. I think he's a radical right-wing fanatic who wants the country to mirror his warped sense of what's "right"). Here's what Sullivan says about the Iraq war. Although I could pick some nits, I think it makes the right point.

I have to say I have been enjoying and learning from this campaign in many ways - not least from you, the readers, and from the twists and turns we have seen and will keep seeing. But now and again, it's worth looking at the big picture. The fundamental question in this campaign is the war in Iraq. Was it worth starting? Has it been conducted well? Will it make us safer? My answers to those three questions are, briefly, yes, no, and, it depends. But from a broader perspective, the following facts are simply indisputable. The fundamental rationale for the war - the threat from Saddam's existing stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction - was wrong. Period. In the conduct of the war, it is equally indisputable that the administration simply didn't anticipate the insurgency we now face, and because of that, is struggling to rescue the effort from becoming a dangerous mess. Period. So the question becomes: how can an administration be re-elected after so patently misjudging the two most important aspects of the central issue in front of us? It may end up as simple as that. Maybe, in fact, it should end up as simple as that.