{"id":287,"date":"2007-05-08T08:59:41","date_gmt":"2007-05-08T13:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=287"},"modified":"2007-05-11T08:00:13","modified_gmt":"2007-05-11T13:00:13","slug":"where-have-you-gone-george-tenet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=287","title":{"rendered":"Where Have You Gone, George Tenet?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>George Tenet resigned too quickl<\/title>George Tenet&#8217;s biggest Iraq &#8220;mistake&#8221; was arguably not that he stayed around too long but  that he didn&#8217;t stay around long enough.<\/p>\n<p>I know, I know.\u00c2\u00a0 Tenet is being <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/18399374\/site\/newsweek\/\">roundly criticized<\/a>  for, among other things, his failure to resign in protest when he saw &#8220;ideology&#8221;  driving the US invasion of Iraq.<\/p>\n<p><em>If<\/em>, however, you are the kind of anti-war critic who agrees with  General <a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/TRANSCRIPTS\/0705\/07\/sitroom.03.html\">Anthony Zinni<\/a> when he tells CNN that the Neocons &#8220;didn&#8217;t think through what  the aftermath would bring. They made some bad decisions on the move. Again, we  all know that disbanding the army, debaathification&#8230; brought about all the  problems we see now&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>If<\/em> you are the kind of anti-war critic who agrees with  &#8220;Leftists&#8221; like <a href=\"http:\/\/robertdreyfuss.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/usbaath_talks_bring_back_the_b.html\"> Robert Dreyfuss<\/a> that the US should have stuck with the Baathists&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em>If<\/em> you are the kind of anti-war critic who agrees with  Council on Foreign Relations figures like Ray Takeyh who have a very clear idea  of a &#8220;Plan B&#8221;: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cfr.org\/publication\/7339\/benign_autocracy_is_answer_for_iraq.html?breadcrumb=\/bios\/9599\/ray_takeyh?page=5\">Benign  Autocracy is the Answer for Iraq<\/a>&#8220;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>If you are <em>that<\/em> kind of anti-war critic, then Tenet didn&#8217;t stay around  long enough.<\/p>\n<p>Tenet&#8217;s job was to install a &#8220;benign autocracy&#8221; under the <em>appointed<\/em>  leadership of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/cgi-bin\/print.cgi?file=\/headlines04\/0907-07.htm\"> long-time CIA favorite<\/a>, ex-Baathist Iyad Allawi.<\/p>\n<p>Tenet <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/middle_east\/3757431.stm\">did so in  late May 2004<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Tenet then <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2004\/ALLPOLITICS\/06\/03\/tenet.resigns\/index.html\"> resigned almost immediately<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Mission accomplished, Right Arabist  style.<\/p>\n<p>The problem, however, is that after the November 2004 election, the Bush  administration went ahead with a year of elections&#8211;over the objections of  figures outside the administration, like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A54680-2005Jan6.html\"> Brent Scowcroft<\/a>&#8211;that handed power to Iraqi Shiites and left Allawi in the  dust.<\/p>\n<p>Tenet wasn&#8217;t there to preserve Allawi&#8217;s &#8220;Saddamism without Saddam.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>If<\/em> you are <em>that<\/em> kind of anti-war critic, then Tenet quit too  soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George Tenet resigned too quicklGeorge Tenet&#8217;s biggest Iraq &#8220;mistake&#8221; was arguably not that he stayed around too long but that he didn&#8217;t stay around long enough. I know, I know.\u00c2\u00a0 Tenet is being roundly criticized for, among other things, his failure to resign in protest when he saw &#8220;ideology&#8221; driving the US invasion of Iraq. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}