Nice. Matt Y. finds this nugget in a piece by Andrew McCarthy at the National Review, underscoring everything that’s been wrong about our approach to the Mideast - and really, the rest of the world - these past seven years:

Thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions in taxpayer funds have been expended to provide Iraqis the opportunity to live freely. And this despite the facts that (a) the U.S. interest in Iraqi democracy remains tenuous (our interest was the elimination of Saddam’s terror-mongering, weapons-proliferating regime), and (b) Americans were assured, when the nation-building enterprise commenced, that oil-rich Iraq would underwrite our sacrifices on its behalf. Yet, to be blunt, the Iraqis remain ingrates. That stubborn fact complicates everything.

Emphasis added. Notes Matt:

Because, of course, historically people have welcomed being invaded and occupied by a foreign power whose actions lead to years of chaos, a huge civilian death toll, and millions of displaced people.

But of course we never saw it like that, and some still don’t. Iraqis are just like Americans - it’s racist to say they aren’t! - and thus were supposed to have reacted just as residents of Indianapolis or Des Moines might have to their “liberation.”

That’s the flawed mindset that created the flawed war in the first place.