A case of being right in the first place and then taking forever to finally be bulldozed to the wrong conclusion. Which I have to believe is how Bush III would conduct foreign policy, especially in the Middle East:
“So here’s the deal,” Bush told an audience in Arizona, “if we’re all supposed to answer hypothetical questions, knowing what we know now, I would not have engaged. I would not have gone into Iraq.
This idiocy drives me up the wall. "Knowing what we know now....I would not have gone into Iraq." Which means Jeb better have an f'ing crystal ball, because here's a newsflash for him and Rubio and Cruz and Paul and every other 'Pubbie (but not Governor Walker, interestingly enough) who's blurted that inane stupidity: Presidents do not make tough national security calls based upon hindsight that hasn't happened yet. Nor can they hop in Time Machine One, flux the capacitor, and zoom forward a few years to see what they should do back in the present. POTUS's never have all the information, and rarely if ever do they have the luxury of dithering and stalling until they do. So they have to make the best decisions they can for the country with the information they do have. That's called leadership. Which means that based on these mealy-mouthed panders to the "anti-war" crowd alone, every Republican "hopeful" who uttered them should be disqualified from the race summarily and immediately because they are not fit to be Commander-In-Chief.
And even then, having genuflected to the Code Pinkers, Jeb couldn't resist the urge to ape Rubio by patronizing the hawks he just flipped off:
That’s not to say that the world is safer because Saddam Hussein is gone. It is significantly safer.“…
“That’s not to say that there was a courageous effort to bring about a surge that created stability in Iraq. All of that is true. And that is not to say that the men and women that have served in uniform and many others that went to Iraq to serve, they did so, they did so honorably.
You can't have it both ways, gentlemen. You can't say you wouldn't have taken out Saddam "knowing what we know now," when part of "knowing what we know now" is that "the world is safer because Saddam Hussein is gone". Knowing that, how the hell can you say that you wouldn't have invaded Iraq? Kindly make up your damn minds.
And for that matter, just exactly what do we "know now"? The first war in Iraq, against Saddam Hussein, was won in three weeks. The second war in Iraq, against the "insurgency," took a lot longer and cost a lot more, but it was eventually won as well via the 2007-2008 "Surge". The fact that Iraq today is functionally partitioned between the Islamic State and the Islamic Empire of Iran is the fault of Barack Obama abandoning the allies the Bush Administration had cultivated in Baghdad, not the 2003 invasion that liberated the country in the first place. That's something that I expect a Republican presidential standard-bearer to uphold and defend, especially given the wars on the near horizon that the Obama Doctrine is stoking.
How's that for this segue?:
But, we’ve answered the question now....
For the fourth bleeping time. And counting.
....so now going forward, what’s the role of America going forward. Are we going to pull back now and be defeatists and pessimistic or are we going to engage in a way that creates a more peaceful and secure world. That is what 2016’s about.
Bull-pucky, Jeb. You've already embraced defeatism and pessimism and pacifism and isolationism because you've let the extreme Left shout you down and bully you into submission - you and most of the GOP field. You're never going to "engage" in any way because you have bought the lie that the American people are "war-weary" and just want to pull the collective covers over our heads and hope the rest of the world goes away and leaves us alone. The last time we did that, the result was the worst global war to date, which killed over sixty million people - and that was without nuclear weapons. The next time we won't be so lucky; nor will we emerge victorious.
If there is a post-Obama era, it's going to be bleak, dismal, and dangerous, and it's going to require sacrifices and "greatest generation"-esque tough-mindedness from an American public that has had every last shred of character and common sense brainwashed out of it. That electorate needs a straight-talker, not a "weaver of comforting fantasies". If they want the latter, let them vote for Fauxcahontas. A Republican that can't stand for the truth is worse than useless.
Kind of like Jeb Bush.
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