Backstabbing attack

Via Ezra Klein, I learn that Robert Farley has a ripping good post about the stupidity of the war hawks' dolchstoßlegende that domestic rhetorical opposition to the war will be the cause of defeat. I have posted about this before, because I've seen it coming for a while.

Riffing off of some commentary from the right, the Poor Man also sums up the dolchstoßlegende's logic well.

if we bomb-throwing leftists had ceased criticizing this policy the day the first bombs fell (or anyhow, pretty quickly afterwards), the occupation would, in fact, have been greeted with open arms, Shiite and Sunni arabs would have not so much peacably resolved their differences as never acknowledged those differences in the first place, and American troops in Iraq — at their current, more than sufficient, numbers — would have easily surmounted the total lack of postwar planning and installed a smoothly functioning democracy primed to elect an inclusive, secular, US friendly government.

And while I'm here, I have to draw special attention to this little observation Farley makes along the way that will have me thinking for a while.

The history of democracy at war is repleat with examples of inept military officers and civilian officials who are sacked because of their inability to execute the war properly. This is as it should be; it is one of the reasons that democracies fight well.

Ah. Illuminating, and somehow both reassuring and chilling at the same time.