new New Yorker piece

This one looks like a doozy. It isn't yet online but Steve Clemons has substantial excerpts posted on his site, The Washington Note. The coming New Yorker article by Jeffrey Goldberg contains a lengthy interview with former U.S. National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft (Bush 41's guy). Scowcroft made no secret of his disagreement on Iraq--well before the invasion, too. I guess he was effectively ostracized from the Bush 43 gang after he aired his dissent on the pages of the Wall St. Journal. Condi Rice, former Scowcroft protegee, fumed about it, too: "How could you do this to us?" Rice & Scowcroft have since parted ways. They met once for dinner in 2003, shortly after Sharon announced his plans to pull out of Gaza. Rice was feeling very smug about it and didn't take kindly to Scowcroft's more pessimistic feelings about the announcement:

I said that for Sharon this is not the first move, this is the last move. He's getting out of Gaza because he can't sustain eight thousand settlers with half his Army protecting them. Then, when he's out, he will have an Israel that he can control and a Palestinian state atomized enough that it can’t be a problem." Scowcroft added, "We had a terrible fight on that."

And on their arguments over Iraq:

"[Rice] says we're going to democratize Iraq, and I said, 'Condi, you're not going to democratize Iraq,' and she said, 'You know, you're just stuck in the old days,' and she comes back to this thing that we've tolerated an autocratic Middle East for fifty years and so on and so forth," he said. Then a barely perceptible note of satisfaction entered his voice, and he said, "But we've had fifty years of peace."

"You're just stuck in the old days"?! As in: "this ain't your daddy's Middle East, old man." Whew. I wonder what she'll have to say to our PM tomorrow. Yikes.