Digby correctly summarizes:

Think about this for a moment. The crackerjack Bush administration --- which failed to anticipate the rise of Iran once they removed its dangerous enemy from the scene --- is supposed to be able to recognize who's who among these various Muslim players and deftly play all the factions against one another in a very discrete and high stakes game in which they finesse a final outcome that brings about peace and security. Oh. My God.

The task would be near impossible for a competent administration to pull off; these boobs have no shot. I'm not wishing for failure, but rather just stating the obvious.

In fact, what's clearly obvious at this point is GW's father's administration very likely understood all the dangers and traps involved in this region and wisely chose to high-tail it out of Iraq. And Bush I was by no means a great president, and yet even his people got this one right!

This criticism is not Monday morning quarterbacking, but instead it's possessing the wisdom and fortitude to admit mistakes and make the necessary adjustment for the good of the country. To realize what you imagined would occur is far from the reality of the present situation, resort to Plan B (assuming you have one!), and learn from the disastrous exercise.

The dumb and reprehensible decision is to fly blind and continue on the wrongful path, to persist in a losing proposition. It's why the best stock market players take losses and move on, thus admitting mistakes and opting to learn from them, refusing to throw good money down the drain. It's why the best corporate managers know when to pull the plug on losing ventures, sooner rather than later.

Hell, you see examples of this wise behavior in nature. Recently, I watched a nature program that showed a menacing starfish with poisonous spines eating coral at will. However, it soon came upon some coral that had a few small crabs living within it and these crabs began to snip off the starfish's spines. One snip after another, the spines fell to the ocean floor. Eventually the much bigger starfish called it quits and moved on, realizing in the end it was the best course of action.

Sensible minds will get the larger point(s) -- beyond that GW is dumber than a spiny starfish.