I just found out that the ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, is an alumnus of my school, Whitman College.

It’s an interesting coincidence because I’ve been thinking alot about Renee Montagne’s February 7th NPR story:

Like his military counterpart, Lt. Gen. David Petreaus, the new top general in Iraq, Crocker raised questions about the conduct of the war. Now, Crocker and Petreaus are being asked — perhaps too late — to correct it.
…
Crocker and Petreaus will be sent to fix the troubled post-war situation that they warned of four years ago. [Barbara] Bodine [, former ambassador to Yemen,] wonders where the United States might be today, had Crocker and Petreaus been appointed earlier in the war.
“It will be one of the inevitable speculations of history,” she says.

As Demarco and Lister say in Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects, it can be futile to be the only one in the room acknowledging risk.

It really is so late.

Is it too late for professionals with relevant experience, appropriate authority and a willingness to entertain complexity?