Reyes' lack of understanding of such a basic concept is appalling, but hardly unique to Democrats.
from the CQ article:
Quote:
To his credit, Reyes, a kindly, thoughtful man who also sits on the Armed Service Committee, does see the undertows drawing the region into chaos.
For example, he knows that the 1,400- year-old split in Islam between Sunnis and Shiites not only fuels the militias and death squads in Iraq, it drives the competition for supremacy across the Middle East between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.
That’s more than two key Republicans on the Intelligence Committee knew when I interviewed them last summer. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va., and Terry Everett, R-Ala., both back for another term, were flummoxed by such basic questions, as were several top counterterrorism officials at the FBI.
...
The best argument for needing to understand who’s what in the Middle East is probably the mistaken invasion itself, despite the preponderance of expert opinion that it was a terrible idea — including that of Bush’s father and his advisers. On the day in 2003 when Iraqi mobs toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, Bush was said to be unaware of the possibility that a Sunni-Shia civil war could fill the power vacuum, according to a reliable source with good White House connections.
If President Bush and some of his closest associates, not to mention top counterterrorism officials, have demonstrated their own ignorance about who the players are in the Middle East, why should we expect the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee to get it right?
http://public.cq.com/public/20061211_homeland.html
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Would an American president who really understood the possible (or likely) outcome of our invasion have acted so precipitously?
Frankly, it worries me more that we have a Vice President who said as recently as two months ago...,
“If you look at the general overall situation, they’re (Iraqis) doing remarkably well.”
Or a President who suggests
(on Oct 25) that....
"Absolutely, we're winning. Al Qaeda is on the run."
As long as Bush continues to define the quagmire in Iraq in terms of al Queda and the war on terrorism, he will never fully come to terms with the situation on the ground in Iraq and change the overalll strategy and tactics to something that really addresses the myriad of geopolitical problems our actions have created in Iraq and the broader Middle East.