Thomas X. Hammes, a retired US Marine Corps colonel and author a good analysis of modern warfare (which I have used in my classes), writes today in the NYT about the failure of the Bush administration to back up its promises on the Iraq war with concrete actions:

 THE White House is right to insist that our postwar goal is a
unified Iraq, as opposed to one divided along ethno-religious lines. So
why is the administration taking so many actions that make holding the
country together virtually impossible?

In January, President Bush
diverted nearly half the money allocated to reconstruction in Iraq to
other needs, including security. Given that our current strategy is
nicknamed "Clear-Hold-Build," where does that leave us?
Clear-Hold-Hope? Mr. Bush’s decision sent a terrible signal to the
Iraqis about our resolve. It is even less understandable since the
expense of the critical reconstruction program is a small fraction of
our annual cost in Iraq.

 He goes on to list several other ways, big ways, in which Bush rhetoric is not matched by US action.  The tone of the piece suggests that Hammes still believes that Bush and company really meant it when they said that they would commit to the long-term reconstruction of Iraq.  I am one of those war critics who never believed it when Bush shifted the public rationale for the war from the hunt for non-existent WMDs to the creation of Iraqi democracy.  Indeed, I have long suspected that the real reason for attacking Iraq was to demonstrate US military power, in the belief that military power, in and of itself, would be sufficient to secure political goals. 

    Remember "shock and awe?"  That was not just a military strategy but also a political strategy.  But politics can never be reduced to mere military power.  Clausewitz understood this.  Sun Tzu understood this.  Most American military commanders understand this.  But the neo-con zealots who wanted war above all else failed to remember this.  And that is why we attacked: out of the misguided expectation that military means alone would induce an "easy" regime change and spark a wider political transformation of the region.

   And now that it has become obvious that politics is more than military power, we can see that Bush never really meant what he said; he never really understood the depth of the commitment "regime change" would require.  He mouthed the words but could not see just how far-reaching the necessary actions would be.  And Iraqis pay with their lives, in untold numbers, as do American military personnel.

     This is the very definition of insincerity, as Confucius would have it.   Which is why he emphasized that noble-minded people are "slow to speak and quick to act." (Analects 4.24).  On Iraq, Bush was only quick to act when it came to military attack; now, when, the hard work remains, his actions fall far short of his words.

    Confucius understood the immediacy of taking the right action.  If we do not act now in a way that serves the long term stability of social relations, we will only create more, and in the case of Iraq more deadly, near-term problems:

The Master said: "If things far away don’t concern you, you’ll soon mourn things close at hand." (Analects 15.12)

    That could be an epitaph for the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Bush-neo-con blindness to the long-term challenge of "regime change."

UPDATE: As conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan’s view on Bush has grown increasingly critical over the years, his position is now virtually Confucian!