--- title: Talking Heads Weigh in on Iraq. Why That's Counterproductive description: Media organizations are rushing to get the views of personalities involved in the Iraq invasion during the Bush era canonical: https://time.com/2891696/back-to-iraq-the-return-of-the-vulcans/ author: Mark Thompson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-17T22:17:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T08:28:20.965Z article:section: Politics og:title: Talking Heads Weigh in on Iraq. Why That's Counterproductive og:description: Media organizations are rushing to get the views of personalities involved in the Iraq invasion during the Bush era og:url: https://time.com/2891696/back-to-iraq-the-return-of-the-vulcans/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfdd273cf0de85b67/69869807cd804d89b1ccb845/screen-shot-2014-06-17-at-5-47-39-pm.png?branch=production&width=628&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 628 og:image:height: 353 og:image:alt: Screen Shot 2014-06-17 at 5.47.39 PM og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Talking Heads Weigh in on Iraq. Why That's Counterproductive twitter:description: Media organizations are rushing to get the views of personalities involved in the Iraq invasion during the Bush era twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfdd273cf0de85b67/69869807cd804d89b1ccb845/screen-shot-2014-06-17-at-5-47-39-pm.png?branch=production&width=628&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Back to Iraq: The Return of the Vulcans > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Paul Bremer, who ran Iraq in 2003 and 2004 as President Bush’s envoy, is [suggesting](http://online.wsj.com/articles/l-paul-bremer-only-america-can-prevent-a-disaster-in-iraq-1402869886) what the U.S. should do there on the _Wall Street Journal_’s op-ed page and CNN. John Bolton, Bush’s U.N. ambassador, is doing the same on [Fox](http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/06/16/us-focus-must-be-on-iran-as-iraq-falls-apart/). Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian at the time, is offering his [counsel](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/paul-wolfowitz-not-iraq-war-architect-107941.html) on NBC, MSNBC and CNN. These are Bush Administration officials who led us into Iraq in 2003 and fumbled what followed. Their comrades in launching that war from outside the Administration are also arguing for a more muscular U.S. foreign policy and action in Iraq. Only in Washington are such second acts in American life possible. As Iraq began falling apart faster than normal last week, reporters and television bookers rushed to interview those involved in the original Iraq invasion. “The Vulcans” was the nickname for the team of Bush foreign policy advisers that helped get him into the White House, and then got the nation into Iraq. In many ways — building the case for war on nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, linking Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, lowballing the war’s cost and duration — they weren’t just off, but were completely wrong. So why are the Vulcans coming home to roost now? More important, should we be listening to them for guidance on what to do? [James Mann](http://james-mann.com/) is author of the highly regarded [_Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet_](http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Vulcans-History-Bushs-Cabinet/dp/0143034898). “It’s natural that we would like to hear from them with Iraq in the mess it is in today,” says the former veteran national-security reporter for the Los Angeles _Times_. “To hear not so much, ‘Well, gee, what do we do now?’ but the obvious questions about ‘What went wrong?’” He finds it strange that Bremer and others seem eager to focus on Iraq’s future, rather than what they did that contributed to the current crisis. “In general, they’re just not the people I would ask, ‘What do we do now?’” Mann says. “I thought it was odd to be listening to Bremer’s advice on this. He’s the guy who disbanded the \[Iraqi\] army, and that single action probably had the greatest causative effect to the mess we see now of anyone.” Mann argues that he doesn’t want to “ban” Bush Administration officials from talking about Iraq, but thinks journalistic questioners should focus on their past actions and not their future recommendations. That’s why he prefers to see them in a televised Q&A format where they can be asked about what happened, rather than simply writing a column suggesting marching orders for the U.S. military. “I think I’ll stay out of whether the _Journal_ should have published” Bremer’s op-ed on Monday, Mann says. [Andrew Bacevich](http://www.bu.edu/ir/faculty/alphabetical/bacevich/), a retired Army colonel now teaching international relations at Boston University, thinks the recycled views of Bush Administration officials and their allies ([here](http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/what-do-iraq%5F795057.html) and [here](http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117859/allure-normalcy-what-america-still-owes-world), for example), fit into a U.S. foreign policy narrative dating back to 1938, when Europe’s major powers refused to stand up to Adolf Hitler. “Their view of history, to my mind, is badly distorted if not simply false, but it is a view of history to which they are devoted,” he says (Bacevich takes them on [here](https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/duplicity-ideologues)). “If you want to summarize that history in one word, it would be _Munich_.” The Munich mind-set demands that the U.S. be perpetually forward-leaning when it comes to confronting evildoers, and primed to attack if the evildoers don’t back down. “In the immediate wake of Iraq, to come back now and say ‘Listen to me as I prescribe a recommitment of U.S. forces to Iraq’ as somehow a way to fix the problem, they cannot grasp how foolish they sound because of their distorted view of history,” Bacevich says. Some foreign policy experts, like Bacevich, are noninterventionists because they view the world through the prism of a different war. “Our worldview tends to derive from the experience of Vietnam in any sort of circumstance in which there is an argument about whether or not it’s appropriate to employ military forces,” he says. “There’s going to be people in my camp who say, ‘Nay, nay, nay — if we involve ourselves we’re going to replicate the Vietnam war.’” People in both camps tend to be products of the coasts and elite universities, Bacevich says. They don’t generally come from the nation’s heartland — “somewhere between Iowa and Indiana,” in his words — and include “very few people who graduated from Big 10 universities.” U.S. national-security strategy would make far more sense if its blacksmiths didn’t bring such worldviews into the Oval Office when the nation is weighing the use of force. “One of the things that so cripples our foreign policy discourse is our collective inability to free ourselves from whatever version of the theology we happen to subscribe to,” Bacevich says, “and really see the world as it is.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2891696/back-to-iraq-the-return-of-the-vulcans/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2891696/back-to-iraq-the-return-of-the-vulcans/"},"headline":"Back to Iraq: The Return of the Vulcans","datePublished":"2014-06-17T22:17:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:28:20.965Z","description":"Some of those who led us into Iraq in 2003 are saying it’s time to return. 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