William F. Buckley, the public intellectual who is probably regarded as the most legitimate conservative commentator in the U.S. for the last few decades has now acknowledged in the National Review that the Iraq war is a gigantic failure.

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.
...
Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.

The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans.
...
Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

Maybe it's just because he is an eloquent writer, but this piece really made me sad. Before now I'd considered our failure in Iraq to be caused by the hubris and incompetence from Bush and the neocons. Buckley casts it in the light of a failure (or potential failure) of American ideals themselves. I still don't believe that's right, eventually, when the religiosity of the middle east subsides and they can tolerate the various sects of Islam, different religions and even non-believers, I'm sure they'll come around to ideals of democracy and freedom. In the meantime though, maybe strongmen are the only types of leaders that can keep their relative populaces from murdering eachother in the streets. Or as Bill Maher said on Real Time this week, not joking either, Saddam was the only guy that could run Iraq. How pathetic.