Jeremy Lott thinks the best way way for the Republican party to regain Foreign Policy credibility is to admit the the Iraq war was a mistake.

They ought to take the chance and tell the truth. It would help restore the party’s credibility with the broad mass of independent voters and with those Democrats sick of the George W. Bush-Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton foreign policy framework. It would also force rank-and-file party regulars to either cease their misguided cheerleading or bury their own heads ever deeper in the sand.

Daniel Larison agrees but explains why it’s not going to happen any time soon.

There are some obstacles to what Lott proposes. Chief among them is the difficulty that many hawks in the party still truly don’t accept that the Iraq war was a mistake. Despite the fact that by virtually any measurable standard the Iraq war was a senseless waste of lives and resources, they don’t consider this to be the truth, so they won’t greet it with relief. At best, many hawks will agree that the there were flaws in the execution, but they remain convinced that the original idea was sound. That wouldn’t matter quite so much if the people likely to be serving in the next Republican administration hadn’t mostly been long-time supporters of the Iraq war. However, because most of them are it will make it harder to think that admitting the war to be a mistake has much meaning for how the next administration will govern.

I think that sadly Larison is right here.  Although you hear some non interventionist rhetoric from the tea party/libertarian wing of the Republican party the neocons are still the majority,  They can’t admit the Iraq war was a mistake because doing so would be admitting that there ideology is flawed.  They will continue to blame Obama for the situation in Iraq even though he only followed the SOFA agreement agreed to by George W. Bush.  Of course they have allies among the Democrats – that’s what worries me about a President Hillary Clinton.   And then there is the military industrial complex – war is very profitable.  Don’t forget that Dick Cheney’s Halliburton went from probable bankruptcy to a very profitable company thanks to no bid contracts in Iraq.  If they admit that Iraq was a mistake wouldn’t that lead people to believe that attacking Iran might be an even bigger one?

While there may be some noise from the fringe the Republicans will not admit that Iraq was a mistake anytime soon.