A historian's verdict. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. is filled with "deep gloom" over the war in Iraq, arguing that a preventive war is essentially what the Japanese thought they were waging when they attacked Pearl Harbor.

In a Q&A with Newsweek (online only), Schlesinger analyzes George W. Bush's "fatal mistake," and criticizes the Bush administration's lack of historical knowledge, Donald Rumsfeld's insulting demeanor toward US allies, and Bush's grandiose sense of mission. Say Schlesinger:

They're ideologues. Bush seems to feel that he's been appointed by the almighty to go to war with Iraq. But Iraq is far less of a clear and present danger than North Korea. North Korea has nuclear weapons. The difference in our treatment between Iraq and North Korea is strong incentive for other countries, other rogue states, to develop their own nuclear arsenal.