Dick Cheney’s latest rant against President Barack Obama’s foreign policy brings to mind a not-too-distant past debate about another president’s foreign policy.

The former vice president’s recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal reminds me of what Republicans said about what Democrats said about President Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/dick-cheney-and-liz-cheney-the-collapsing-obama-doctrine-1403046522

Remember those bad old days?

President Bush — and, yes, Vice President Cheney — argued that the United States needed to topple Saddam Hussein. Their campaign to win congressional approval of their plan was based on a series of untruths, such as Saddam’s supposed involvement with the 9/11 attacks.

Well, some Democrats objected to us going to war in Iraq. Do you remember the Republican response? Why, if you criticize a president’s foreign policy, particularly when it involves war or potential war, you embolden the enemy, the GOP said. We must speak with one voice. Partisanship ends at the water’s edge, yes?

Yes, many Democrats were indelicate in their criticism at the time. In fact, many Republicans spoke reasonably in trying to tamp down the dissension here at home as we prepared to go to war.

Now the shoe is on the other proverbial foot. President Obama has withdrawn our troops from Iraq and is preparing to do the same in Afghanistan. Iraq is erupting into sectarian violence.

Who’s leading the criticism of a Democratic president? None other than the former Republican vice president, Richard Bruce Cheney.

His absolute lack of self-awareness, his complete amnesia on what he and other Republicans said a decade ago to similar criticism and his nonsensical defense of a policy that killed more than 4,000 Americans and more than 100,000 Iraqis is simply stunning.

I hate to think Dick Cheney has lost his mind.

However …