Finally, a Frank Assessment From the State Department
The president is afraid he will be made to pay at the polls. The Democrats are determined to make him pay. And yet (even in Henry Kissinger's time) the actual price in death and broken society, tears, grief and lives gone to hell is paid by those who always pay it—soldiers and the innocent among civilians.
Jonathan Steele writes in The Guardian (a U.K. newspaper) that
Washington's top foreign affairs spin doctor has described US policy in Iraq as "a failure", and accused his government of "arrogance" and "stupidity". Speaking in Arabic on al-Jazeera television Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy at the state department's bureau of near eastern affairs, gave viewers an unusually sharp assessment of the administration's efforts in Iraq. He spoke in the past tense, as though it was all over.
In this amazingly frank zephyr of fresh air from Condi Rice’s State Department, the benefits of Arab language skills are apparent—no one knows what the hell you said until after you said it.