book notes

Daydream Believers by Fred Kaplan

Rumsfeld and Cheney didn't plan for a post-invasion occupation because they were intending to simply install Chalabi as a Iraqi strongman. When Bush belatedly insisted on real Iraqi elections, no one revisited the occupation plan.

Bush cam up with the idea that freedom and democracy is the default condition of human nature (thousands of years of contrary history notwithstanding). Therefore, as long as we remove an impediment like Saddam, freedom and democracy will just spring up naturally.