AS is right that Douthat comma Ross (my nickname) has done a perfectly concise job with this bit on wartime reduxes.
It's only now, when the prospect of "victory" is so clearly a mirage on the sands of fantastic wartime debt (at a minimum), that such truth-telling is possible.
However, Ross might consider some of the ideological leanings that ruined "the case for prudence and caution".
Among them, the the mindset of the Reagan Devolution, that "America is #1" and might even be expected unilaterally to deliver a two-word, Woolsey messages like, "You're next." (And it's not over, yet. Even today, Newt Gingrich continues to beat the drums of what was packaged to look like "revitalism" in its day, but now comes across like an ugly, far-right Nationalism.)
One could further extend to include the ideological bent that stifled those pushing for "prudence and caution" in the pre-war run-up. Among other things, I'm thinking of the infamous NY Post picture of "The [French] Weasels".
As for unilateralism, Ross's point is correct, but thin. Truly, prudence and caution militate almost at all times for alliance, for burden sharing. The willingness to overlook that certainly does have ideological underpinnings.
Last, and perhaps most important, is the inadequacy of the intelligence services, who have the mandate to accurately describe what boils down to the parameters of what is "cautious" and "prudent", even if there is some precision missing. Whether or not there is an ideological charge to it, the mis-estimations of the CIA have cost the nation enormous quantities, during the cold war and, now, during the opening of Rumsfeld's mis-conceptualized "GWOT". This is true, even before you get to the ideologically-driven, "1% solution", so-called.
