No More Blank-Check Wars

By Leslie H. Gelb and Anne-Marie Slaughter

Tuesday, November 8, 2005; Page A19

Most wars overflow with mistakes and surprises. Still, in Iraq, much that has gone wrong could have been foreseen -- and was. For example, most experts knew that 100,000 U.S. troops couldn't begin to provide essential security and that Iraqi oil revenue wouldn't dent war costs. But none of this was nailed down beforehand in any disciplined review.

And Iraq, whether justified or not, is only the latest in a long line of ill-considered and ill-planned U.S. military adventures. Time and again in recent decades the United States has made military commitments after little real debate, with hazy goals and no appetite for the inevitable setbacks. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson plunged us into the Vietnam War with little sense of the region's history or culture. Ronald Reagan dispatched Marines to Lebanon, saying that stability there was a "vital interest," only to yank them out 16 months later after a deadly terrorist attack on Marine barracks. Bill Clinton, having inherited a mission in Somalia to feed the starving, ended up hunting tribal leaders and trying to build a nation.