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Wolfowitz

Big Shocker—Iraq War Architect Goes on 'Meet the Press' to Argue for Endless War ... Why would anyone listen to Paul Wolfowitz at this point?

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Peter Burgess

Big Shocker—Iraq War Architect Goes on 'Meet the Press' to Argue for Endless War Why would anyone listen to Paul Wolfowitz at this point?

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The George W. Bush Iraq War sales team was out in force on the Sunday talk shows to explain that if President Obama had just made Iraq a truly endless war, everything would be fine and dandy over there now. That 'endless war' bit isn't really an exaggeration, either. Remember Bush Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz? Meet the Press had him on to give his fresh, completely unexpected take on things as one of the guys who got the U.S. into Iraq to begin with:

... on June 15 from his NBC platform, Wolfowitz opined that the current Iraqi violence could be traced to the absence of U.S. troops, suggesting that we should have stayed in Iraq just as we 'stuck with South Korea for 60 years.' When Meet The Press host David Gregory asked the former Bush official for advice on how to mitigate the potential terrorist threat merging from ISIS, saying 'what do you do then, as a policy matter, to stop this,' Wolfowitz responded that the Obama administration must convince the Middle East that the U.S. 'is serious,' arguing, 'I would do something in Syria.'

Because there's nothing to show you're serious like starting another war, while occupying Iraq for 60 years. Here's Wolfowitz in 2003, by the way:

He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that 'stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible,' but would oppose a long-term occupation force.

Wolfowitz was not the only wrong-in-2003, wrong-now Bush retread trotted out by the Sunday talk shows, those guardians of serious political thought. ABC's This Week opted to go with one of the most consistently wrong commentators out there: Bill Kristol, who 'lay the blame for escalating violence in Iraq at the feet of the Obama administration, saying, 'It's a disaster made possibly by our ridiculous and total withdrawal from Iraq in 2011.'' Either that or what the United States did in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, one or the other. (Hint: the latter.)

How is it that after the destruction these people wrought—the horror in Iraq then and now, the deaths and injuries of American troops, the massive financial cost—they are still considered serious commentators whose opinions we should consider on this issue? If nothing else, they're completely predictable. What does Paul Wolfowitz or Bill Kristol think about any given thing going on in the Middle East? He almost certainly thinks military intervention is not just a good idea but the only reasonable idea, the one true solution. We don't really need to ask them anymore; it's pretty much a given. You might as well ask George W. Bush and Dick Cheney if they think history will be kind to them. But time and time again, these are the people who the Sunday shows turn to to explain the world to us and tell us what the Obama administration should be doing. Everyone involved in choosing guests for those shows should be ashamed. But evidence suggests that, like the architects of the Iraq War, these people know no shame.

Laura Clawson is the Labor editor at Daily Kos Labor, and a contributing editor at Daily Kos.