The Insanity Of The Iraq War and "Appeasement"

From James Carroll at the Boston Globe:

Insanity is defined as repeating one mistaken action again and again, each time expecting a better result that never comes. Prime example: the United States in Iraq. Washington perceived a weapons of mass destruction threat from Saddam Hussein, but instead of responding with diplomacy - internationally coordinated weapons inspections - it went to war. When Saddam Hussein was toppled, the initiative should have passed from the Pentagon to a State Department-led program of stabilization and reconstruction, but instead a crudely violent military occupation was begun. Diplomacy was once again rejected.
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Let's call this repeated insanity the mistake of "supermilitarism," choosing war over diplomacy, and expecting order to follow, instead of chaos. The mistake was made at the beginning, in the middle, and is being repeated now, in what should be the end. The mistake is so deeply rooted in American structures of imagination, economy, and government that it isn't even perceived as a mistake by those in power. And it threatens the future as much as it burdens the past.
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The occupation is the mistake that keeps on taking.

The healing of Iraq would be far more readily achieved by an American acknowledgment of failure, and by the engagement of other nations that such an acknowledgment would immediately invite. But insanely holding on in Iraq until Washington can claim something like "victory" means that this globally oriented geo-political ambition - America's standing in the world - is being bought at the price of Iraqi blood.

And now Barack Obama is being Swift-Boated by the president himself in a foreign country and by John McCain for wanting to try diplomacy with "rogue nations" before launching wars. Remember Bush's Axis of Evil, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea? Well, according to CNN, Bush is negotiating with North Korea:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States said Friday it has reached a deal with North Korea to provide 500,000 metric tons of food aid over the coming year to the closed-off communist nation.

The Bush administration says the aid is unrelated to its nuclear disarmament deal with Pyongyang, although both have involved an unusual intensity of U.S. diplomacy with a nation President Bush once included as part of a rhetorical "axis of evil."

Obama is being accused of "appeasement" by ignorant or deceptive people who do not know or care what the word means. Using diplomacy with leaders of other nations is NOT appeasement. Will the American people buy this ugly smear? We shall see.