Q: You’re an expert on Henry Kissinger. Is there someone who . . .

A: I’m an expert on the side of Henry Kissinger that lied like most people breathed.

Q: Is there someone who is the Henry Kissinger in this administration?

A: Oh, believe me, I pray for one (clasps his hands and looks beseechingly upward). Wouldn’t it be great if the reality was that they were lying about WMD, and they really didn’t believe that democracy would come when they invaded Iraq, [that] you could go to war with 5,000 troops, a few special forces, a few bombs and a lot of American flags, and Iraq would fold, Saddam would be driven out, a new Baath Party would emerge that’s moderate? Democracy would flow like water out of a fountain. These guys believe it. They believe WMD. There’s no fallback with these guys. These guys are utopians. They’re like Trotskyites. They believe in permanent revolution. They really believe.

 . . . But these guys, do you realize how much better off we would be if they really were cynical, and they really were lying about it, because, yes, behind the invasion would be something real, like support for Israel or oil. But it’s not! It’s not about oil. It’s about utopia. I guess you could call it idealism. But it’s idealism that’s dead wrong. It’s like one of the far-right Christian credos. It’s a faith-based policy. Only it wasn’t a religious faith. It was the faith that democracy would flourish.

Q:So you don’t think that this is some Machiavellian, cynical, manipulative . . .

A: I used to pray it was! We’d be in better shape.

—Seymour Hersh interview, Salon, 18 Sep. 2004

I’ve been watching “The Fog of War” again — picked up a used copy of the DVD at Scarecrow. And I’ve been thinking. I don’t suppose there’s any way we can get Robert McNamara back?

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Update: Nice quote from Juan Cole:

I have a sinking feeling that the American public may like Bush’s cynical misuse of Wilsonian idealism precisely because it covers the embarrassment of their having gone to war, killed perhaps 25,000 people, and made a perfect mess of the Persian Gulf region, all out of a kind of paranoia fed by dirty tricks and bad intelligence. And, maybe they have to vote for Bush to cover the embarrassment of having elected him in the first place.

How deep a hole are they going to dig themselves in order to get out of the bright sunlight of so much embarrassment?

It would explain a lot.