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Many of the Bush administration's top officials, not least the president himself, seemed to think that once Saddam Hussein was toppled and the Baathist regime deposed, freedom would gush forth like uncorked champagne. They didn't realize that centuries-old tensions between Sunnis and Shiites—suppressed  like everything else during Saddam's rule—would also reignite. If they had appreciated the depth of these tensions, they might have concluded that a new and democratic Iraq would not emerge automatically, that it would have to be carefully crafted; and they might therefore have understood the need to plan for postwar "stability operations." Instead, the Pentagon went into a war without any such plans because Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. Central Command, didn't think they would be necessary.

Some officials did know, but they seem not to have told the president. A story by George Packer in the New York Times Magazine of March 2, 2003 (a couple of weeks before the war began), recounted a January meeting in the Oval Office between President Bush and three Iraqi exiles. The exiles spent much of the meeting explaining to Bush the difference between Sunnis and Shiites; they were stunned that he seemed unaware of the two groups' existence. A story by David Sanger in the following day's Times quoted "an administration insider" saying, "Of course, in our internal discussions, we raise the Yugoslavia analogy"—the possibility that Iraq could fall apart in the wake of Saddam's ouster—"but this isn't the moment for the president to be talking about that risk." This was, in fact (and it should have been obvious), the best conceivable moment for the president to be discussing just that.

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So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us start with President Bush's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam's deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here's what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantime—this is of special importance—all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.

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