Hillary Learned Nothing From Iraq

"Failing to prepare is preparation for failure." -- John Wooden, Legendary UCLA Basketball Coach

One of the favorite right wing taking points spewed to defend and define the problems with the Iraq War is that "we made mistakes," immediately followed by "but mistakes are made in every war." But it wasn't Bush Administration mistakes that opened the door for far more deaths and a tsunami of a money pit thousands of miles away. It was the failure to prepare for the aftermath of the invasion.

Most egregious, is that we failed to plan for the insurgency. That wasn't a mistake. That was homicidal irresponsibility. The right-wing echo chamber has attempted to exonerate Bush's decision to go to war based on misinformation by offering a litany of names, including Bill Clinton, who believed Saddam harbored WMD. But Clinton never took the country to war over the information. Bush did. That wasn't a mistake. That was a tragic misjudgment and mismanagement of gargantuan proportions.

Now as we look back over the Hillary Clinton failed presidential run that was to be a slam dunk, it becomes obvious that the same candidate who participated in giving the inept Bush administration the key to one deadly gas-guzzling Hummer of a war, learned nothing from her misguided vote. And while failure may not in itself be a sin, ignoring the lessons of that failure, sadly only paves the way for more failures.

Worse, it wastes the opportunities for what could have been.

In this battle for the White House, John Wooden could have seen it coming. Not Hillary.

She failed to plan for Obama.

Hillary's campaign was built on the base of predetermined success. Mission Accomplished declared with far more hostilities left to deal with. She underestimated the political machine Obama assembled and the new voters it would bring to the fight.

She expected Democratic electorate would greet her as a liberator from eight years of oppression under the Bush regime and would throw votes at her feet. Fundraising would be a cinch. Why with her insurmountable clout the campaign might end up paying for itself. All she need do was enter the fray and she would win. Why plan for a post-Super Tuesday? Why truly define the rationale for the run.

And when she did make her move, she didn't place near enough troops on the ground in Iowa. When she finally did send in more they didn't have near enough armor to protect them from the Obama insurgency

Her now infamous 16 words "My husband did not wrap up the nomination until he won the California primary in June," wouldn't have been all that bad if she didn't feel it necessary to follow it up with another 16 words: "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June of '68 right after the California primary."

This isn't to say that her 16 words, "In Bosnia we ran to our vehicles with our heads down to avoid the sniper fire," was any better. You would think someone would just tell her to use less words.

Hillary's intelligence failure was supplied by her generals on the ground -- McAuliffe, Penn, Wolfson, Rendell -- but for the curve balls they served up it might as well been Ahmed Chalabi doing the pitching, for no matter what she threw, Obama hit it out of the park.

The point is that she had plenty of time to learn from the mistakes, but she chose not to reassess and adapt, which is what a good leader does.

Clearly, one who does not learn from history is bound to repeat it.

And that is a failure with no success in sight.

Unfortunately, for Hillary, she didn't have four years to come up with a surge.

Steve Young is the author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (www.greatfailure.com).

Comments

[DennyCrane]

Excellent. I love you how you relate this to Bush's strategy. Both Hillary and Bush are guilty of arrogance. Hillary knew her vote for the war was wrong. But she was more concerned with running for President someday and how voting against the war would be used by her opponents to show that she was weak on national security. And when she finally did run, she just assumed no one could ever beat her. I remember people saying that about the first Bush. After the first Gulf War, most Democrats were afraid to run against him. Then along came this governor from a no-name state who ended up beating him. I guess Hillary didn't learn her lesson there either.

[Rescisco]

A good analysis. I think, perhaps moreso than any "failures" on Hillary's part, the outcome may be partly explained by "Clinton fatigue." Now I respect Bill and Hillary, and I still think that Bill Clinton (for all of his flaws) was a brilliant president. But I started out saying Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton is a cycle we had to break. The times do call for new leadership and new ideas. I predicted that as soon as a vialble alternative emerged to Hillary (any viable alternative, not neccessarily Obama), she would fall back to the pack and be in danger of losing. Her vote on Iraq (and more importanty her inability to say sincerely "I erred, and history will hold all of us voted accountable. But we must learn, and we must move forward, and we must end the tragedy of error and the cycle of failure etc.") was also a factor that I felt would cause her lead to evaporate. Finally, Senator Obama had the right strategy, the best organization, and the perfectly timed message. The theme for this election was always goiong to be "change" and the appeal to "hope" (when we have had nothing but failure after failure) was a perfect compliment. Any intelligent reading of the political "cycle" would have indicated to Hillary that this was the "no brainer" theme for the year. They missed the mark from the beginning and Obama hit it.

[hopeless277]

And still the perpetrators and their enablers walk among us as heros and heroines. And a extra special shout out to Nancy Pelosi. Hey, Nance, what are you going to say to the tens of thousands that will die in Iran when Bush attacks after you took impeachment 'off the table'? Mistakes were made? Yes, that's exactly what she'll say. Congress is nothing more than a cabal of war criminals feeding on the flesh of their Iraqi and American victims. They are all a disgrace to the human species.

[Michale32086]

Impeachment was a non-starter from word one.

Get over it.

There was nothing to impeach Bush for.

Michale.....

[Gma11]

Excellent metaphors.

[Durango]

Don't let any of the idiot pundits fool you.

This election in 2008 is first and foremost about the War in Iraq.

Everything else is secondary.

It is about incompetence, squandering lives, resources and our nations reputation.

It is about replacing stupidity and ideology with intelligence.

Hillary was on the wrong side of the Iraq war. Which is why she lost. And McCain is on the wrong side of history.

[ZaneC]

While it is true that Clinton voted for the Iraq war, I would like to know exactly why so many are against it. Is it because they feel it was illegal, because the media told them to be against it, or because war itself is wrong? The first option certainly holds at least some truth to it and is a legitimate reason. The second is worrisome, even though it produces desirable results. As for the third, if one was against Hillary during the primaries because of it, then one should have been against Obama as well. He may pull us out of Iraq, but he plans to increase the number of troops and resources devoted to Afghanistan.

[Durango]

The war in Iraq was illegal (Iraq posed no immediate threat) immoral (a continuation of failed Colonialist empire building, and an attempt to corner Iraq's oil supply), was achieved through lying to the American people. Through a blatant propaganda campaign.

But most importantly it has been a failure. It harms Americas standing in the world, makes America LESS secure, much more vulnerable to terrorism. Sent energy costs through the roof, very likely tanking the US and the worlds economy, wiping out any economic growth for the past 20 years.

Americas military has been hamstrung, at least the Army and Marines, and the cost in lives lost and lives destroyed has been enormous. Both Iraqi and Americans.

Hillary voted for the war. I understand her doing so. I don't blame her so much for that vote. I understand how the propaganda campaign worked. The political destruction of Max Cleland was proof of that.

But I cannot forgive her her vote to authorize Bush to go after Iran. Or her statements about obliterating that country.

We are stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan. I fear that there are no good outcomes in either country.

But I respect Obama's intelligence and willingness to bring new thinking to the table. It may turn out terrible. Bush may have destroyed all hope for a "good" outcome in either place. But I am willing to take the risk on Obama's intelligence.

[timm0]

Steve, your examples do not support your conclusion.

She didn't fail to prepare for Obama. Who could have? He's had more first-time accomplishments than anyone in recent memory. You can't "prepare" for the shattering of stereotypes, new SOPs, and record voter participation. The ONLY thing you can do with your campaign - the BEST thing you can do - is to focus on what voters demand and addressing those needs.

Hillary came out of the gate confident and calm. She stupidly surrendered Iowa, but rebounded in NH. But after that, they were totally out of control and consistently made stupid decisions. They maintained their marketing assumption, that voters are dumb, pliable buffoons who will accept what they're told and bleat in harmony.

In short, they campaigned like the repugs have campaigned for the last 15 years. They were so soaringly arrogant that they chose to disbelieve that Obama was effective because he was, for the most part, up front and honest with the public on his relationships and policies. This was such heresy to the Clinton campaign that they didn't know how to respond - other than to get nastier and uglier. In essence, they chose to strip votes from Obama instead of winning votes for themselves.

That has NOTHING to do with preparing for something like an insurgency. It's all about adapting and understanding the voters. Hillary and her campaign are now the picture of "tin ear" politics.

[Michale32086]

I've said it before and I'll say it again..

Obama is Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan come to life....

Michale.....

[RedDogBear]

Huh?

[kikiva]

Even after the nomination is settled, Obama backers are still attacking Clinton.
Not a good way to unite the party. Maybe it is time to move on Obama backers or else you will lose Obama the Clinton supporters vote.

[timm0]

Quit with the childish threats, ok? The reason she is still a story is because she continues to behave in a churlish, divisive manner. Can we safely ignore it? Sure, I suppose we could. But until she turns the focus on the success of the Obama presidency, she has to lie in the bed she's made (and continues to ruffle).

[newddle]

Sorry if some of us Obama backers offend, but some of us have wounds of our own to tend. HRC's unending candidacy scared me, and, in fact, I'm holding my breath about what she says tomorrow. Young's article reminds me of some of the scary things that happened, or that she did, in her campaign.
Even more, I was never sure that she was damaging BHO's GE candidacy very much during the primaries, but she and her followers have really been damaging it with her failure to shut down VP talk immediately. And with the insistence that if she's not VP cand, her backers won't support him in the GE.
How do we reach out to each other?
Is this the time to reach out to each other or do we need a bit more private time to heal first?

[Michale32086]

I have no interests in uniting any party, as I am not part of any Party..

I just call them as I see them and there is plenty of missteps to point out about Clinton and her campaign..

Michale.....

[MPeter]

Good one Michale. I love the post-Clinton analyses of her implosion. Every subsequent post just gets funnier and funnier. Hillary gave one of the most bizarre speeches ever, after she knew she lost. She acted as if the decision was still hers to make. And what is with MaCauliffe? I think he is drinking too much!!!

[Michale32086]

Don't forget the most obvious comparison to Bush..

"STAY THE COURSE, regardless of the reality on the ground"

Michale.....