Don't Roll the Dice

Today David Ignatius, once a big supporter of Bush's invasion of Iraq, offers his readers half an apology for backing the invasion he now sees as disastrous:

Invading Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein a decade ago was one of the biggest strategic errors in modern American history. We’ll never know whether the story might have been different if better planning had been done for “the day after,” or the Iraqi army hadn’t been disbanded, or several other “ifs.” But the abiding truth is that America shouldn’t have rolled the dice this way on a war of choice.

This is a good answer for all of the people who still think, as Ignatius hints that he does, that the war might have turned out differently if Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld had handled it better. Wars are rarely handled perfectly, and they are always gigantic risks. Better not to roll the dice of war.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias' Iraq War anniversary thought:

Here's my lessons learned from the U.S. invasion of Iraq: Starting wars is a bad idea.