In retrospect, did President Bush do the right thing in reacting to 9/11 by declaring a universal war on terrorism?
David E. Sanger: He did the right thing by going back to Afghanistan. However, when George W. Bush declared a universal war on terrorism, his administration began to blunder. They wanted the country to feel at war, but they had a very difficult time identifying the enemy. And then by defining the enemy too broadly, they created the problem of setting people against us who might not have been against us ordinarily. In fact, there were opportunities throughout the Bush administration to divide America’s enemies. Those opportunities were missed. You’ve called Iraq “The Great Distraction.” The Iraq War so preoccupied the U.S. senior leadership that many greater threats were allowed to fester. President-elect Obama needs to re-balance the portfolio. It’s like you’re saving to send the kids to college and you invest everything in one stock — and that stock is Iraq. I don’t think the Bush administration intended to invest everything in Iraq. But as the war stretched into three, four, five ye
