Let's put our heads together, and start a new country up

You may have tired of reading of Iraq, but I recommend you read Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City (now in paperback.) The book's focus is on the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American agency that ran Iraq for the first year following the invasion. It's a hugely depressing story of mostly well-meaning people making horrible decisions as they try to turn a wrecked country in a first world liberal democracy with Milton Friedman's dream economic system. We see people closing state run companies that employ thousands with no recourse, attempts to privatize drug sales while hospitals lack generators and of course the disastrous de-Bathification policy.

These policies probably never would have worked, but the Administration didn't help by hiring a bunch of C listers. Like the Maoists, the CPA believed that people were Better Red than Expert. Leading figures in their fields were kept out and barely qualified (often barely out of school) people were given critical roles. The single most important policy initiative of the decade was treated, well, just like Katrina. Critical roles given to ineffective people.

At a macro level, the failure of the CPA reinforces the myth that the Defense Department is the only foreign policy organization that works. The US already over-relies on the military (read Bacevich) and this experience might validate that approach in some ways. The US needs a balanced foreign policy that takes advantage of the capabilities of State, the CIA, the Defense Department and others. It just needs to ensure that skill is more important than political loyalty.