My Week-Late Review of No End In Sight

I saw Charles Ferguson's new documentary last Tuesday, and the reports I've seen throughout the blogosphere, wondering about whether the film would be a 90-minute defense of the "incompetence dodge," are in my view accurate. Yes, the film is an impressive chronicle of the thuddingly stupid mistakes made by the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Administration after the invastion. And those mistakes did occur and should be rightly lambasted. But they were prefigured by the "original sin" mistake of going into Iraq in the first place, which many knew would upset the delicate balance on which that country teeters, which many knew would take us away from the primary mission in Afghanistan (where the Taliban is resurgent) and the overall war against Islamic radicalism (where Al Qaeda has a new safe haven - in Pakistan).

After the screening the director (a poli sci professor - this is his first film) spoke on a panel. I left early, but the report I got was that the director (and some other RAND Corp. flack on the panel named Gregory Treverton) essentially averred that the war was an OK idea but it was just incompetently managed. The crowd went BALLISTIC, apparently, which is to be expected for Westside LA.

There have been studies of the batshit insane circumstances in Iraq, like Imperial Life in the Emerald City, that don't come off this way. But No End In Sight most certainly does, because the voice of the film is on the side of the brave people, Administration appointees all, who tried to "fix" Iraq, not anyone who actually didn't think it was a good idea to begin with. I appreciated the film for laying out the history in a linear fashion, but I fear it will be expropriated by those who take the lesson of "for the next unnecessary pre-emptive war, we'd better pack a lunch!"