Some say Iraq is a mess because we went in "light," without enough troops. Some say Iraq is a disaster because we essentially invaded that country alone, buttressed only by a small cluster of allies that became known as the "Coalition of the Willing." In truth, the invasion of Iraq was doomed to disaster the moment American soldiers stepped into the sands of that nation. It was doomed because, though the war appeared to serve politics, the reverse was in fact true. Politics, in Iraq, was in the service of war, and has been since the beginning.

-William Rivers Pitt, Politics in the Service of War, 1/12/07