Megan McArdle wrote to recuse herself from opining on postwar Iraq, but opined nevertheless:

The narrative of WWII in most American minds seems to go something like this: we won, the nations formerly ground under the Nazi heel rose up joyfully to greet us, the Germans realized the error of their ways, we slapped the Marshall plan together a couple of weeks later, and soon Europe and America were joining hands across the Atlantic to form NATO, singing "It's a Small World After All" as everyone gazed soulfully into the bright quasi-socialist future. . .

In short, the years 1945-1955 seem to have been edited out of the popular imagination.

[...]

To be sure, I'm extremely disturbed that the Bush administration seems to have had absolutely no plan for what to do with Iraq after we got it. Given the exigencies of war, I would consider it par for the course if they'd developed an unworkable plan that had to be chucked and replaced -- but it looks to me as if no one in the administration gave any thought whatsoever to any scenario except the Iraqis joyfully rising up to greet us, installing a representative democracy, and sending representatives to Washington to join hands with the cabinet for a chorus of "It's a Small World After All". . . I find this extremely disturbing.

But that doesn't mean we're DOOMED! DOOMED! DOOMED! We may be, of course. But I'm withholding comment until the matter's a little clearer.

Couldn't resist?

The easiest way to gauge a pundit's possession of any knowledge on major, American postwar reconstruction is how eager they are to call the slightest bit of unrest, economic distress and political disarray "a mess." That indicates an utter lack of perspective. And I'm not speaking of doctorate-level education: One does not need to read too deeply to understand the difficulty and length of the reclamation process.

I disagree with the idea that the White House wasn't ready, postwar, with a general objective. True, right up to the fall of Hussein's Baghdad, the Bush administration was technically equivocal about setting up a pluralist, federalist democracy - but for good reason: Remember, these are days where humanitarian concerns against Saddam were immediately struck from the germinating 1441 in UN negotiations, with a Security Council populated in part by dictatorships. Can you imagine, Megan, the international uproar if Bush stated, from the beginning, that Iraq was to become a modern, capitalist democracy?

We currently have no way of knowing what the administration had specifically planned for beyond press releases. Furthermore, having A Plan^TM that is intended to work on the first try truly does entail a will to control the tactical situation so it becomes congruent with the strategic vision. That means telling people what to do with few reservations. Again: these days, there's room for a Paul Bremer, but not a Douglas MacArthur. The Iraqis may be generally grateful, but they'll expect much more latitude than the Germans and the Japanese did when the press and the region is standing by to encourage them. MacArthur ordered the Diet and PM to undertake policies; they haggled, but SCAP had the veto. I suspect that on many policy issues, Bremer will firmly - but politely - ask.