Back in the dark ages of human history -- you know, in 2002 -- there was a heated debate raging about just how easy it would be to invade Iraq, overthrow Saddam, bring democracy to the Middle East, and start a domino effect of pro-Western peace and prosperity. Sure, there were nay-sayers who insisted that things would be more complicated. That deep ethnic and religious tensions were brewing under the surface. That knocking over a government was easier than setting one up. That the 'government in exile' wouldn't be accepted by the locals, and things would turn chaotic fast. Colin Powell summed up the cautious camp's argument well: "You break it, you buy it."

Most of the country's decision makers, though, were convinced that things would be a cake-walk. Of course they were convinced! The thinktank gurus who crafted the plan -- the much-talked-about neoconservatives -- had been prepping for the invasion since the mid 90s. Their idea of taking out Saddam and sliding in a US-friendly democratic government would change the face of the Middle East forever and cement America's place in the list of benevolent nation-makers. Skeptical? Look back at the news stories, the conservative and neocon op-ed pieces coming out from 2002-2003. Between breathless rounds of speculation about nuclear weapons, the 'transforming the Middle East' mantra appeared over and over and over. Guys like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, David Frum, and the rest of the crew would accomplish everything the hippies dreamed of, but they'd do it the pragmatic way: with the military might of the strongest nation on Earth.

Uh-huh.

For quite a while it's been obvious to everyone that plan failed abysmally. Iraq keeps 'turning corners' every month, and bodies continue to pile up. The worst fears of the "You break it, you buy it" crowd have come true, and even the bloody prospect of a straight-up civil war sounds like a refreshingly straightforward alternative to the multi-layered spectacle of chaos and violence the country has settled into. With that as a given, it's finally acceptable for even conservatives to admit that the Bush administration has botched things horribly. It's a great opportunity for the people who bought into a fundamentally broken plan to shift the blame, and January's Vanity Fair has a perfect example. The figureheads of the Neoconservative movement are beside themselves, it says, at how badly their plans have been executed.

"The levels of brutality that we've seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity," [Richard] Perle says, adding that total defeat—an American withdrawal that leaves Iraq as an anarchic "failed state"—is not yet inevitable, but is becoming more likely....
According to Perle, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the Bush administration... "At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible... I don't think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty."

Excuse me? The problem was disloyalty? It's here that the neoconservatives betray their roots as 50s leftists, idolaters of ideology. The problem, in Perle's mind, is not that the neoconservative plan was a masterpiece of asinine hubris. The problem certainly wasn't a failure to plan for anything other than complete, joyous cooperation by the whole of Iraq. And it certainly wasn't the assumption that the rest of the Middle East would happily cheer as the world's largest military power cruised through, knocked down their neighbor, and set up camp. It wasn't even that the reconstruction of a sovereign country was turned into an ideological gold rush for the bright young things of conservatism. No, the problem was that people were disloyal to the neoconservative ideology, and to a lesser extend to the grand plan.

This underlying conviction comes through even stronger when Kenneth Adelman, another of neoconservative's poster children, explains what he'd do if he could revisit 2002.

Adelman says, "I would write an article that would be skeptical over whether there would be a performance that would be good enough to implement our policy."

The neoconservative plan was to invade Iraq, install an America-friendly government, and step back while the dominoes of freedom clink-clink-clinked across the rest of the Middle East. Their plan is cute in retrospect, the way a toddler is cute when he announces his goal of becoming an astronaut by the age of ten. The best that can be said of the plan is that a wise and gifted President, with a similarly wise and gifted administration, the Blessing of God, and a lot of luck, could have made it less of a disaster.

The neoconservative thinktanks and the conservative political circles that rode with them bought into that plan, and rode it into the ground. The fact that they still blame everyone else -- a President who botched things, unnamed 'disloyal parties' inside the administration, the phases of the moon, whatever -- is proof that they should not be allowed to repeat their errors. They should be thrown out of the halls of power, and their profound failure of ideas and of execution should be thrown back at them every time they claim they have 'the solution.'

"You break it, you buy it" is too good for this crowd. How about "You break it, you get the hell away from it?" It's time to let the adults patch things up.