Right opinion, wrong voice

Re “Beating an orderly retreat,” Opinion, May 5

It disturbs me to see The Times give space to an article about how to extricate ourselves from Iraq by a marketer of that war, Francis Fukuyama. While I applaud his belated split with fellow neocons and his subsequent admission that the war was a mistake, it was his flawed intellect that failed to grasp what many finer thinkers, but lesser public celebrities, warned us about before Congress authorized a non-constitutional invasion and occupation of Iraq. Why invite this flawed thinker to opine on what to do now? He no more understands the thinking and culture of the Middle East than he did when he hijacked a naive president and sold him outrageous strategies. Why not turn to truly informed and rational minds, scholars who have labored in obscurity but who have accurately forecast the consequences that have doomed our Iraq venture? We deserve to lose, as long as we play with our fifth-string team.

JEAN E. ROSENFELD

Pacific Palisades

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Why does it take a Harvard-educated professor of international politics years to figure out what an idiot already knows? I’m the idiot. It was patently obvious to me, in March 2003, that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was the most cruel and stupid act I had ever witnessed our government execute.

CHRIS MITCHELL

Venice