All I have to say about W's address

Say that I trash my mother's house, and as she's standing there in shock, I waltz in and say "no worries, Mom, I take responsibility for this."

Then rather than cleaning up the mess, I wander around, throwing some more trash on the floor while I'm at it.

That is not taking responsibility. And it's sad that American discourse has been reduced to what you say, not what you do. 

Can the mess even be cleaned up? At this point, probably not.

We got damn lucky in Vietnam. It was in a corner of the world everyone else was willing to ignore, so eventually the chaos went away. The Middle East is pretty much permanently in chaos, both from without and within, between feuding ethnic groups and the oil the whole world wants at any cost. And now, the whole region's liable to blow like a powder keg. I am absolutely not bullshitting you when I tell you I really do fear for the future.