Premature or immature?

In yesterday's Slate, Fred Kaplan writes about James Baker's New York Times Op-Ed regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. What fascinated me most was what Kaplan said in passing.

Kaplan (along with Baker) doesn't believe, as neocons do--well, as Kaplan believes neocons do--"the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad." In other words, some thought a free Iraq would help popularize democracy in the Middle East, thus making even the Arab-Israeli conflict easier to deal with. Or as Kaplan hyperbolically puts it (pretending to speak for neocons) "a stable, democratic Iraq would light a blazing trail of freedom across the Middle East."

Kaplan starts his next sentence "[o]nce this theory proved fanciful..." Pardon me? How has it been proved wrong? Iraq is still on the way to democracy, supported by the vast majority of its citizens; meanwhile, there are new chances in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, though no one knows where it's going. (Probably nowhere, as most neocons, I believe, expect.)

Kaplan ends his piece saying President Bush shouldn't listen to the "same advisers who led him astray on Iraq." Huh? Did I miss something? Has the Iraq war been lost while I was out? Did Bush just lose his reelection bid?

I understand that Kaplan can't wait to call the ongoing (and, I would say, so far, mostly successful) war in Iraq a failure, but shouldn't he at least wait until it seems to be over? I know it's frustrating when you hate something so much, but I would suggest holding off for about 4 or 5, maybe 10 years, when he'll have the proper perspective. Then, if he still wants to make such pronouncements, even in passing, go right ahead.