Let us pause briefly to view the debate over detention, interrogation, and targeted killing in the wider context of debate within the Bush administration over geopolitical strategy. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was conducted in a way that reflected its origins in an uneasy alliance of hopeful “neoconservatives” and more wary realists. The neocons sought to create a model for democratic change throughout the region, whereas their more cautious counterparts feared that Saddam's removal would loose destabilizing ethnic and geopolitical forces beyond America's control. This latter group, led by Brent Scowcroft, opposed any such intervention. The military leadership sided with this group, but insisted that if the invasion were to proceed, it must be accompanied by a commitment of greater force from the start than key neocons thought necessary to ensure its success, as the Weinberger-Powell doctrine enjoined.

The compromise struck by the two sides combined what proved to be the worst of both worlds: an invasion, but one perilously understaffed, especially when combined with the decision to disband the Iraqi army, police, and civil service. The success of the 2008 “surge” in much reducing civil strife only left many inferring that sufficient resources at the outset in 2003 could well have prevented the problem from arising in the first place.