“Josh Marshall interviews Wesley Clark”:http://talkingpointsmemo.com/oct0301.html#1001031244pm.

Josh doesn’t throw him any curveballs, and for the first few questions Clark sounds a bit too much like . . . well, like a campaigning politician. But once they get into foreign policy it gets good.

. . . in the odd kind of geopolitical chess board game this administration seemed to want to play, they seemed to assume that you could get your forces into Iraq, and, like a game of checkers, you could skip across the Middle East–plop, plop, plop–as though in some metaphysical sense, it was easier to come ashore up through the Euphrates and Tigris valleys into the heart of the Middle East and southwest Asia, and then cross into the mountains of Iraq–excuse me, of Iran–or pivot and go towards Syria. It was analytically, geometrically satisfying, even though those of us who understood the situation at the time said it made little sense. It was old-think. It was 19th century geostrategy . . . It was the Great Game with modern equipment, and hypermodern risks. And, in reality, the problems with Osama bin Laden were not problems of states. They were problems of a supranational organization which alighted in states, used states, manipulated elements of states, but wasn’t going to be contained and destroyed by attacking and replacing governments.

The whole thing’s worth a read.