Indeed, the US did lack the capacity to serve as a national police for a medium-foreign country. This required pointing out? Who would think the US ever had such a capacity? 
And yes, one more thing that simply had to be absolutely correct for Bush/Iraq to work. How long's the list now, Matt, of the number of hugely complicated variables that had to go absolutely right for Bush/Iraq to work? One hundred? Six hundred? One thousand? Care to do the decision tree graphing on just three and see what the chance of success looks like? 
Just like Gideon Rose dismisses Chalabi's Bay of Goats as "silly," a pre-emptive unilateral invasion by US troops (and, yes, Palau's as well), should have been laughed off the table.
It was not a fit subject for serious consideration. But when it was made one, it achieved status as a "potentially workable"idea. And the rest, as they say, is catastrophe.

I messed up my first comment, so this one will be shorter.
I think Matt's point is right, and I think Tristero agrees, but still needs to make his point.  I'm tired of it.  Tristero, I iike your thoughts, but this anti-MY thing is going to be your signature, and that is, in my opinion, a good thing.
I agree with you, in general, more than Matt.  And i like what you write, and my question is...what exactly do you want?
You have purposely mis-read his posts, assailed him over at Digby's blog (and "clarified" your mis-reading) and continue weigh in with tangential bashing.  It's rather stupid.
Matt admitted he was wrong about the war, and now offers critiques of those who shared his initial position, and in doing so, critques himself.  He is in complete agreement with you at this point about the wrong-headed ideas that prevailed in the run-up to war.  What do you want?  For him to be older?  To "grow up" to use your term?  To not have gone to Harvard?  To be quiet because he has the balls to admit his mistake?  
I opposed the war for the same reasons as you did.  To have folks who disagreed with me then to agree with me now is sad solace given the costs, but then again, what more can I demand other than a recognition of reality and perhaps a bit of learning and knowledge on their part.
I would like to think that I am capable of similar learning and knowledge if and when I am proved wrong.  Likewise, I admire folks who come clean and not only say "I was wrong" but also offer ideas about how folks, indcluding themselves, can avoid being wrong again.
So what's your deal?  What do you want?
P.S.  I would have posted this as a reply to your comment, but that didn't work, and I am sure that is due to me.  So please don't take this as something more personal than it is, although, I will admit, it is somewhat personal.  

In a quiet way. No one was listening and Wolfowitz and Rumsfield hustled him off the stage. When he testified before Congress that a successful Iraqi occupation would take "several hundred thousand" troops he was effectively testifying that it could not be done at all. We didn't have the troops to sustain occupation at that level, we still don't, and absent a draft we won't.

(Reprint of NYT article from the time Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force's Size)

I can understand why liberal war hawks blew me off, who was I, I can even understand them blowing Steve Gilliard off, but they blew off the considered opinion of a man with 30 years of military experience who clearly was making a bold and clean break with his civilian superiors.

General Shinsheki said it couldn't be done with the force structure we had. General Shinsheki's professional judgement has more than been vindicated in the months since, and a lot of liberal war hawks should be asking themselves why they knew more about the Army than the Army Chief of Staff.

Some of us were paying attention. "Who knew" buys war hawks nothing.

abjectfunk,
This is not about Matt and it never was. This is about naive, duped, people with far more influence than Matt. People who really should have known better. People who don't recognize where their errors of judgment lay in the Bush/Iraq debacle. 
Packer, a damn intelligent man and fine writer, resorts to cheap ad hominem attacks whenever anyone gets close to his real mistake. Matt, also very intelligent and a very good writer, retreats into academic irrelevancies about the morality of it all when the error, in this particular case, was simple: an impossible idea should never have been entertained as possible (of course, the war was immoral, but not primarily because of the reason Matt gives).
It's not apologies I want. Heck, Packer's a piker when it comes to the real pros who have slung personal attacks at opponents and others have made worse mistakes (eg, Paul Bremer). It's their understanding of what that mistake was. 
I'm afraid that now that Packer is a very influential man, he will make the same class of mistake again.And frankly, I'm very worried about that. I have a daughter to raise, and I want her to live in a world that isn't ravaged by the consequences of Packer's best intentions.

We should never have invaded Iraq and we should get out. Those who weren't insightful enough to see through the obvious BS that was being tossed their way in a time of national hysteria should analyze the mistakes they made in their thinking processes so they that they won't make the same mistakes again if the Bushies in desparation to re-create his Top Gun Commander -in - Chief image to divert our attention from Plamegate take military action against Syria and/or Iran. Of course, we don't have the resources to do this without relying on massive bombing that will kill large numbers of innocent people. However, don't for one second think that the Bush loonies aren't capable of enormously stupid and dangerous decisions. Iraq isn't going to work so stop worrying about how it could have been made to work. It was done without the world's support while we spat in the world's face. Help to make sure we don't do it again rather than worrying about if another 150,000 troops or whatever would have made it "work".