Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Obama's Luck, Not Smarts

A common refrain from Obama is that how he was against the war in Iraq from the start. The liberal lemmings have taken the leap of faith that Obama has the smarts on this topic.

Here is a a comment from Obama:

"We have more than 150,000 Americans in the middle of two wars, brave men and women on their second or third or fourth tours of duty in Iraq, a place where we're spending $400 million a day to help a government that refuses to help itself, a war that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged," Obama told the North Dakota State Democratic Convention on Friday.'

Seems like the State Senator from IL got lucky in 2002 when he first blurted this out. 73 Senators including 29 Democrats (including notable Intelligence committee veterans like Joe Biden (Delaware) and Bob Graham (Florida) ) and had more information than Obama, including classified and independently verifiable information, to make this decision. Some of these Senators have more experience and knowledge than Obama.

Note the Senators had access to additional information like the 92-page National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s ability to attack the U.S. (which most of them may not have read!) which Obama did not have access to.

It was not just the Senate, foreign policy experts and commentators (like Frareed Zacharia, Thomas Friedman) also supported this decision.

The dissenting Senators main objection was not that we should not go to war with Iraq but that the resolution passed on Oct 11th 2002 was too broad and premature.

Here is the main part of the resolution:

"The president is authorized to use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq, and (2) enforce all relevant United Nation Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq."

In decision sciences you can get lucky for making the right decision with the wrong outcome or make an uninformed decision with the right outcome.

Obama was not smart in making this decision. He got lucky. Luck plays a role more often than what people give credit for.

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