Tom Ricks has a comforting voice and looks like he could work as a department store Santa at Christmas. Despite that demeanor, in his interview on NPR this morning he was anything but calming or reassuring. Ricks is a foreign affairs correspondent for the Washington Post and author of two books about Iraq, Fiasco and his newest, The Gamble. Calling the Iraq War America's worst-ever foreign policy blunder, he nonetheless says it is, at best, only half-over. According to Ricks, no one in Bagdad thinks all US combat troops will be out by 2011 as Obama has announced. Two bracing quotes about Iraq's future:It's not going to be a democracy, it's going to have a surprising level of violence, it's probably going to be an ally of Iran and it's probably going to be ruled by some sort of dictator, some sort of little Saddam.
I think Iraq is going to change Obama more than Obama changes Iraq.
Bottom line: whatever Obama's intentions, we are still in the middle of a disaster of the highest order.
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