A Fair Tally of Bush Blunders

Richard Brookhiser has a trenchant piece in the New York Observer this week on Bush’s 10 Mistakes At Home and Abroad

"6. No punishment for Falluja ... 10. Soft on Ken Lay ..."

Ayup. And I would have found room to add "uglying up the gay marriage debate" to the list. Here's one I hadn't thought through enough to make the connection he makes:

7. Misreading Turkey. Going the U.N. route unsuccessfully made our enterprise seem illegitimate (no one questioned our actions in the Balkans, which neither sought nor had U.N. sanction). Misreading Turkey had a material effect on the invasion of Iraq and, even more, on its aftermath. Tommy Franks’ plan was to sweep to Baghdad from the north and from the southeast. Because Turkey was not brought on board, we had to rely solely on the southern river corridor. The heartland of the old regime, the so-called Sunni triangle, was therefore not shattered in the initial push. It was as if Sherman marched to the sea without touching Atlanta.

Brookhiser's 3, 2, and 1 Bush missteps are Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran.

Mr. Bush seems to believe that Syria is cowed and that the Saudis can be pressured. His administration seems not to believe that Iran is a threat; at least, it does not encourage spontaneous regime change there, as Ronald Reagan did when he urged Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Perhaps Mr. Bush will grasp these nettles, but we cannot tell.