Instant Gratification And The GWoT

Dr. Sanity has a very interesting piece taking critics of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy to task for short-term thinking. To wit:

The kind of major shift in US foreign policy that Bush has initiated may actually take decades to play out; and the repercussions of what has happened in the last 5 years may ripple for half a century or more. That is to say, there will be no instant gratification and no instant and universal successful outcome or failure –i.e., the kind that can win votes and influence money flow in time for the 2006 elections; nor probably for the 2008 ones either.

He faults Democrats for wishing for a spectacular immediate failure and Republicans for hoping for an easily-quantifiable short-term success in the Global War on Terror. Give the whole thing a read – interesting stuff.