Indeed, as was apparent today, the latest “conspiracy” is rather mainstream stuff, like supporting Obama’s Af-Pak policy, and it enjoys healthy bipartisan support — just as Clinton’s Balkans wars did, and yes, just as Iraq did initially. Criticizing these policies is fair. But those criticisms should be aimed at a broad swath of the foreign policy establishment, on both sides of the aisle, not just at the neo-cons. ~Christian Brose

It’s a deal. No doubt when critics focus on the failures of the majority of the foreign policy establishment, they will be treated as worthy adversaries in policy debate and not dismissed as unpatriotic and anti-American goons. Isn’t that right? Somehow, I doubt it.

Criticizing Iraq policy became broadly acceptable among the foreign policy establishment once the neocons could be made into the sole villains of the piece, which was useful for deflecting the responsibility of various other hawks and internationalists. In some ways, the latter were more responsible for plunging us into the disaster by creating a respectable and broad consensus in favor of an unjustified, unnecessary war of aggression. That doesn’t mean that neoconservatives weren’t actually responsible for a great deal of harm, for which they still refuse to take responsibility, but it does mean that they became convenient scapegoats for less fanatical, more “pragmatic” types who changed their views on the war in the last four or five years. Neocons take the brunt of criticism because they were the first to call for the war and are among the last to continue to defend the indefensible, but I am more than happy to hold accountable all of the people who have blundered so horribly. There’s no need to wait–I have started doing this already. These people are blundering again in endorsing Obama’s misdirected nation-building scheme in Afghanistan, just as many of them blundered in supporting or later embracing the “surge”* as something other than a delaying tactic that addressed none of the fundamental political problems in Iraq. I fully expect them to be just as wrong this time as they have been wrong in the past. I also fully expect them to hide behind their near-unanimity as a shield against this criticism, because this is what they always do.

* The “surge” failed, and its failure was foreseen from the beginning.