When good links go bad

As we’re in 10th anniversary mode for the Iraq War (or the initial successful occupation), many links on that. I’m sure I’ll have others soon.
A columnist argues part of our failure in Iraq was because we applied the same dirty-war tactics we’d previously supported in Central America. And the UK ignored a lot of evidence indicating Saddam had no WMDs, just as the White House pretended the intelligence proved the case for war (my thoughts on why intelligence, good or bad, doesn’t cause wars are here).
•Despite Paul Wolfowitz being part of the administration that got it so wrong on Iraq, he’s still treated as a serious thinker on war. As noted at the link, this despite the fact he believed Saddam not only caused 9/11, but the Oklahoma City bombing as well. As James Fallows (who did predict the Iraq war would be a disaster) says, there’s been no accountability for Cheney, Wolfowitz or anyone else who was wrong about the war—they’re still taken like people who don’t share responsibility for the disaster. LGM agrees that they shouldn’t be taken seriously.
•As Fallows points out at the link above, even though Al Gore believed Saddam should be removed, he was right on a lot of points about why the Gulf War was a lousy ideaddddd post-9/11.
•Speaking of which, Bush administration David Frum explains that the war really was all about oil. Glenn Greenwald remembers when saying that was virtually equivalent to being pro-terrorism. Tiny Revolution points out that even in saying where the government went wrong, Frum still can’t get his facts straight: he claims Saddam only stopped his WMD program because he ran out of money when the counter-evidence mentioned by so many people is that he stopped after the first Gulf War for fear of retribution.•Slacktivist points out one flaw in the administration’s planning: it treated looking for Plan B as equivalent to opposing Plan A, so nobody drew up Plan B.
Another point is that Frum insists in his piece that he was completely justified in identifying Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil”—anyone who thinks Iran could have been dealt with diplomatically has to face the fact that we’ve been trying to do that under Obama and it hasn’t worked, so hah!
Of course, under Obama we’ve also had open discussions of the need for regime change, the possibility of invasion, imposed sanctions and repeatedly told Iran that even though there’s no evidence it has nuclear weapons, we’re going to treat it as if it does and won’t accept Iran performing perfectly legal atomic research. I don’t think “diplomacy” means what Frum thinks it means ..
•Moving on, a new book looks at the New Deal’s complex juggling act between providing help for the working classes and paying off the South by excluding blacks. I’ve read another book on the same topic by the author.
•Some studies don’t support gender stereotypes. I take them with a grain of salt (they’re not automatically free of the flaws that feed the opposite position) but they are a good counterweight.