The 'Cronkite Moment' in Iraq?

During the Vietnam War, CBS Evening News achor Walter Cronkite went to Vietnam and following a series of stories on American involvement to supress the Viet Cong, declared in an "editorial opinion" that it seemed more likely that "that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate."

President Johnson famously remarked after the broadcast that "That's it. If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

Flash forward to 2006 and conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan becomes the latest high profile conservative to back away from supporting the war in Iraq. You remember, the war started over Iraq's weapons of mass destructi...to topple Sadda...to bring democracy to the Middle East.

Sullivan cites three "huge errors" in support for the war:
1. "to overestimate the competence of government, especially in very tricky areas like WMD intelligence. ...The result was the WMD intelligence debacle, something that did far more damage to the war's legitimacy and fate than many have yet absorbed."

2. "narcissism. America's power blinded many of us to the resentments that hegemony always provokes. Those resentments are often as deep among our global friends as among our enemies--and make alliances as hard as they are important."

3. "not taking culture seriously enough. There is a large discrepancy between neoconservatism's skepticism of government's ability to change culture at home and its naiveté when it comes to complex, tribal, sectarian cultures abroad."

Seems reasonable to me.

Though Sullivan salvages some optimism:
"...we know that no perfect war has ever been fought, and no victory ever won, without the risk of defeat. ...War is always, in the end, a matter of flexibility and will. And sometimes the darkest days are inevitable--even necessary--before the sky ultimately clears."

We'll see.

What I Got Wrong About the War [Time.com]