As you probably know by now, just days before he got the heave-ho, Rumsfeld penned a memo to Bush suggesting alternative approaches to Iraq.  The New York Times got a hold of it, and printed it on Saturday.

What is remarkable (to me) about the memo is how amazing facile it is.  It’s a menu of not-well-thought-out-options, lacking any specific detail.  While some of them are not necessarily bad, they are the kind of things that people like me were discussing 2 years ago.

Jules Crittenden has a very readable dissection of the memo and Middle East Expert Juan Cole looks at the memo and reminds us why Rumsfeld was stuck on stupid:

Several things struck me about it:

1. Rumsfeld doesn’t understand the magnitude of the crisis or the tightrope the US is walking in the Gulf. His attitude is almost lackadaisical. Doing an all right job, but it isn’t working fast enough or well enough. So maybe make some changes– apparently any old changes will do because there are infinite lives to play with and infinite monies to spend.

2. Rumsfeld spends more time plotting out how to manipulate the American public than how to win the war. Everything is about spin, about giving the image of progress even in the face of a rapid downward spiral into the abyss…

3. Rumsfeld openly admits that he wants to run Iraq just like Saddam did:

‘ Provide money to key political and religious leaders (as Saddam Hussein did), to get them to help us get through this difficult period. ‘

I mean, bribing people to be your puppets is bad enough, but citing Saddam’s policies as an example for how Iraq should be run is absolutely outrageous…

The specifically military suggestions in the memo are all over the map. In addition to a lot of contradictory and not obviously effective politicies, he steals ideas from Democratic Senators and Congressmen.