Michael Rubin at the The Corner relates a snippet of an interview with Brent Scowcroft, geopolitical Realist.

If Brent Scowcroft could find no better answer to these questions than this, he’s a doddering old fool, vindictive, or too clever by half:

Question: Hans Blix, the former weapons inspector in Iraq, says that country is worse off today than it was under Saddam Hussein. Do you agree?
Scowcroft: I don't know if it is worse, or better or what. I think it is different. If you are a Sunni you were probably better off before. If you are a Shiite you are probably better off now. Saddam maintained order by brutal suppression. Now the suppression is gone people are killing each other. So I don't know how to answer this.
Question: What went wrong? Didn't anyone tell this administration about the complex situation in that country with the Shiites, Kurds, etc.?
Scowcroft: I think the answer is obviously not.

No doubt Scowcroft’s confusion with the first question has to do with how he defines the word, “better.”

A geopolitical Realist, of course, knows that “better” can only be understood as how one selfishly considers and assesses what one wants, without reference to any “greater good,” whether moral, ethical, religious, or political. Therefore, in his example, Sunnis no doubt had it “better” under Saddam, who often lavished certain members of his own tribe and ethnic group (Sunnis) at the expense and extreme suffering of other Iraqis.

In reality, of course, Sunnis were just as terrorized as Shia or Kurds, if they caused any intended or unintended offense to Saddam, his sons, any of his extended family, or his servants. They then met the wood chippers, prisons, torture, and mass executions for merely a misspoken word or having an attractive female family member.

If Scowcroft can’t wade through a softball question like this without making an a$$ out of himself, does he really possess knowledge and understanding of “the complex situation” in Iraq, I mean superior to that of anyone in the Bush Administration?

They’ll all be coming out of the woodwork, now, no doubt.

All the State Department, CIA, and other Federally bloated bureaucrats who seethed through the dark years of Bush, when they were perceived as “out of touch” or bereft of any practical ideas for advancing US National Security interests via effective Foreign Policy. And rightly viewed as such.