Brent Scowcroft-Realist

Jeffrey Goldberg's article on Brent Scowcroft has not been put online by New Yorker magazine. We do have Steve Clemons' longish excerpts and an interview with Goldberg at the online edition of New Yorker. I'm sure the entire article will appear somewhere, perhaps Truthout, before the day is out.

One little piece from Clemons' excerpts really says it all:
First Gulf War

It would have been no problem for America's military to reach Baghdad, he said. The problems would have arisen when the Army entered the Iraqi capital. "At the minimum, we'd be an occupier in a hostile land," he said. "Our forces would be sniped at by guerrillas, and, once we were there, how would we get out? What would be the rationale for leaving? I don't like the term 'exit strategy' -- but what do you do with Iraq once you own it?"

That's why Scowcroft advised Bush 41 not to continue the first gulf war and why he opposed Shrub's invasion from the beginning. It appears he knew what he was talking about.
Revolutionary Utopianism

The neoconservatives -- the Republicans who argued most fervently for the second Gulf war -- believe in the export of democracy, by violence if that is required, Scowcroft said. "How do the neocons bring democracy to Iraq? You invade, you threaten and pressure, you evangelize." And now, Scowcroft said, America is suffering from the consequences of that brand of revolutionary utopianism. "This was said to be part of the war on terror, but Iraq feeds terrorism," he said.