The regrets of a war-party liberal

From the last two paragraphs of George Packer’s review in The New Yorker of George W. Bush’s book, Decision Points:

[Bush’s] decisions, he still believes, made America safer, gave Iraqis hope, and changed the future of the Middle East for the better. Of these three claims, only one is true–the second–and it’s a truth steeped in tragedy.
Bush ends “Decision Points” with the sanguine thought that history’s verdict on his Presidency will come only after his death. During his years in office, two wars turned into needless disasters, and the freedom agenda created such deep cynicism around the world that the word itself was spoiled.

Note the assurance that Iraqis, in retrospect, would not wish the Iraq war undone: the result has given them hope (though shaded by tragic awareness). This can’t be the view of the more than 100,000 dead, or the more than four million refugees. Rather, it is a wishful surmise, by an American journalist who pressed for the war, regarding the judgment of those who survived with a fair portion of their friends, families, and livelihoods intact.

There should have been a way, thinks Packer, for Americans to walk in cleanly, after the devastation of Shock and Awe, and help the country back to its feet. That we could not do so is the fault of one man, George W. Bush. The same with Afghanistan–both wars were “needless disasters.” Craftily waged, and followed through with a judicious design of nation-building, they could have succeeded. The idealism of liberal empire is still going strong in American think tanks and respectable journalism.