"The Other Side"

Broder, who gets to the story a little too late, nonetheless gets to the nub:

[Freeman']s great strength, Blair said, is his ability to think through how situations look to the people on the other side. Had our intelligence system been cued to do that, Freeman told me, we never would have assumed we'd be greeted as liberators in Iraq.

And as we assess intelligence about Iran, can we feel safer because a special interest ensured that the president could not get the full range of opinion that the United States might need? That's the problem. But some opinions - those that might actually see how the US-Israel alliance looks to all those countries we need to engage diplomatically - are just not allowed.