“after the fall of Baghdad, Gen. Jay Garner and the Task Force he had assembled in Iraq was also summarily called off the job by the Supremo Generalissimo-wannabe Donald Rumsfeld, who in Cobra II is described as nixing the hundreds of man-years of expertise on the Middle East in the Garner group because “we need fresh thinking.” Subsequently, hyper-sycophant Jerry Bremer and Middle East expert Khalilzad were nominated as co-ambassadors, but Bremer complained and Zal was canned. Wouldn’t want linguistic knowledge and vast expertise as part of the mix in the post Baghdad conquest mode. That would not fit in with the Rumsfeld modus operandi.”

The surge is sort of like locking the barn door a couple years after the horses escaped, but the long-term consequences of an American debacle in the Middle East are too difficult to contemplate—for thinking minds who know the region.