Iraq Has Made Realists out of All of You... Posted by Patrick Barry

Or so it is said sometimes in my office (typically in reference to people of my generation.) 

Tonight the President attempted to give meaning to a war America has fought for the last seven years, a conflict that raged on the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah, but also in the corridors of public discourse. And frankly, it's impossible to reduce Iraq's complexities to a 15 minute address, though I credit Obama for the attempt and I understand why he made it.  However, there was one line that irked me a bit:

"And we must project a vision of the future that is based not just on our fears, but also on our hopes -a vision that recognizes the real dangers that exist around the world, but also the limitless possibility of our time."

C'mon, Barack! You should know better! 

And I suspect he does. Of course our time contains limitless possibilities, but what differentiates possibility from reality are the decisions we make. Decisions that carry consequences as much as benefits. 

I think Iraq has made everyone sensitive to trade-offs, to an extent. Anne Applebaum, an unabashed Iraq war supporter, wrote a column in yesterday's Post that dealt with the possibilities lost by the Iraq war with refreshing candor. But reading it, I also felt immensely dissatisfied. After all, wouldn't it have been nice to have that conversation before the war, instead of after it had begun to wind down? But of course, that's not the conversation we had.

This is what Obama meant when he said he wanted to "end the mindset" that got us into Iraq. He meant the mindset that described benefits in the rosiest terms, minimized costs, and absolutely ignored lost opportunities. I'm hopeful that the generation that came of age during the Iraq war has fully internalized this lesson. But judging from the way politicians and pundits so easily propose attacks on Iran, or demonize Muslims, or reduce counterterrorism to a game of global frogs and lilypads, all without even the slightest nod to the consequences, I'd say we still have a long way yet to go. 

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