America's Learning Disability in Iraq

Moisés Naím
Washington, DC
from Washington PostGlobal

(Moisés Naím is editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine.)

The United States government is suffering from a curious learning disability when it comes to Iraq. As it begins the painful process of disengaging from Iraq, the U.S. is at risk of repeating the mistakes it made going into the war.

This is particularly curious because such a strong consensus has developed about the mistakes made going in. Liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, defenders and critics of the decision to go to war have all settled on the same list of errors: Not sending enough troops; not anticipating correctly the training and armor that the troops would need; dismantling the Iraqi army; failing to prevent the looting; purging Baath Party members from government jobs, thus leaving thousands of Iraqi families without income and important agencies bereft of critical personnel; misreading the nature of the enemy; underestimating the Sunni-Shiite conflict; misjudging the influence of Iran, Syria and foreign jihadists; squandering reconstruction funds and the catastrophic attempt to micromanage Iraq right after the invasion.

Obviously the United States can't recommit all of those specific mistakes, but amazingly, the assumptions that led to them are still intact, and still inform the proposals and debates about what should be the next steps in Iraq. Consider:

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