In a move that shocked many observers, a alleged international war-criminal walked into the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda and requested he be transferred to The Hague to answer for his alleged crimes.

Confusion swirled following Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo announcing via Twitter that Gen. Bosco Ntaganda had surrendered willingly to the United States. The International Criminal Court first indicted Ntaganda for recruiting children in 2003 as part of a rebellion against the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but he has until now avoided capture.

The U.S. Embassy in Kigali was unable to confirm or deny Mushikiwabo’s statements for the next two hours, before State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland affirmed during her daily press briefing that Ntaganda was inside the Embassy. Complicating matters, neither the United States nor Rwanda are members of the Court, thus are not obliged to hand Ntaganda over. Instead, the U.S. is currently working with other countries to facilitate Ntaganda’s transfer to The Hague.

In the time since charges were filed against Ntaganda, he was first integrated into the Congolese armed forces as part of a peace deal, before defecting to lead yet another rebellion against the Congolese government — the M23 movement. A United Nations Group of Experts claimed in a report that the Rwandan government has been controlling the M23 as a proxy against the Congo. The United States has, in turn, been accused of running defense for Rwanda, protecting it from potential international condemnation. Rwanda’s ties to Ntaganda, however, became tenuous over time, as factions emerged within the M23:

“I’m sure he was much more scared of us than the [US] embassy because he has caused some friction,” a senior Rwandan military official told the FT, adding that he believed Gen Ntaganda feared for his life. “The information we had consistently coming from his people was that he was heading deeper and deeper into the forest but that was a deception to our intelligence.”

Ntaganda standing trial at the Hague is a much needed boost for the ten year-old ICC. Credibility is at a premium for the body, as its warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been frequently undermined by African leaders, and its indictment of Kenya’s President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta failed to keep him from winning his country’s recent election.

Neocon leader Bill Kristol is upset that Americans have soured on war. “Are the American people war weary? Yes, to some degree,” Kristol acknowledges in a new piece in the Weekly Standard, but, he adds, “Could there be a worse prescription for American foreign policy than giving in to popular war weariness? No.”

Kristol is commenting on the recent intra-GOP spat between Sen. Ron Paul (R-KY) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). McCain referred to Paul as a “wacko bird” for his isolationist tendencies and his 13-hour filibuster critique of President Obama’s targeted killing program (McCain has since apologized), while Paul shot back last week at CPAC, saying McCain’s foreign policy wing of the GOP as “has grown stale and moss covered.”

Kristol jumped in to defend McCain, arguing that Republicans should try again to convince Americans that they shouldn’t be so bearish on war:

Now we’re weary again. And there are many politicians all too willing to seek power and popularity by encouraging weariness rather than point out its perils. [...]

The task of a serious opposition party is to rally the nation to its responsibilities and long-term interests. The task of GOP political leaders is to educate the public about the dangers of the world and to inspire people to rise above their weariness. The task of American conservatives is not to let an understandable Obama-weariness turn into weariness in fighting the nation’s enemies or in supporting our troops in the field.

Got that? The Republican Party must convince the American people that they must RISE ABOVE their collective skepticism about war solving America’s problems. But why? Because Kristol and Co. want to go to war with Iran. “It’s long since been time for the United States to speak to this regime in the language it understands—force,” Kristol wrote in the Standard nearly two years ago. Last year his factually challenged pressure group called for an end to negotiations with Iran, saying in an ad campaign that “it’s time to act.” And what was the main reason Kristol opposed Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense? Hagel apparently was too skeptical about starting war with Iran.

But Americans don’t want to go to war with Iran — partly because of war weariness, but also because it’s not a very good idea. Kristol knows this, which is why he’s trying to recruit Republicans to his cause to help him convince us otherwise. Who does he have so far? From his new Standard piece:

[Rep. Tom] Cotton [R-AR] is 35 years old. He’s not stale or moss-covered. A combat veteran, he understands real war weariness. But he also understands it needs to be resisted and overcome. Above all, he understands, as did the GOP of old, the GOP of Nixon, Reagan, and Bush, that while we may not be interested in war, our enemies remain interested in us.

Cotton was last seen suggesting that Iraq may have had something to do with 9/11. Perhaps then Kristol does know what he’s doing.

Ten years after the first American bombs fell on Baghdad, the United States is still paying the costs for the invasion of Iraq — monetarily, strategically, psychologically and morally. The decision to launch the war is sure to be re-debated ad nauseum over the coming days. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday that it’s “too soon to tell” whether the Iraq war was a success. Here’s just five reasons why he’s wrong:

1. The debt

At the start of the war, the Bush administration predicted that it would cost around $50-60 billion in total. They were wrong by more than a factor of ten, sending the U.S.’ debt soaring, a condition that has yet to be rectified. According to a recent study, the war is set to have cost the U.S $2.2 trillion, though that number may reach up to $4 trillion thanks to interest payments on the loans taken out to finance the conflict. Of that staggering amount, at least $10 billion of it was completely wasted in rebuilding efforts.

2. The physical and psychological strain on U.S. troops.

The soldiers charged with fighting the war were stretched to their limits, put through multiple tours, with increasing length of time overseas as the war stretched on and shrinking downtime in between each. All-told, over 4,000 U.S. troops died during the country’s time in Iraq, with another 31,000 wounded in action. In the aftermath, the cost of providing medical care to veterans has doubled, adding to the difficulties faced by those who served. Up to 35 percent of Iraq War veterans will suffer from PTSD according to a 2009 study, while the suicide rate among veterans has jumped to 22 per day.

3. The forgotten war in Afghanistan.

Even worse, the war in Iraq caused the U.S. to take its eye off the ball in Afghanistan. Rather than following through, the Bush administration allowed the country to stagnate, prompting a Taliban resurgence beginning in 2004. As the West focused almost exclusively on Iraq, Taliban fighters imported tactics seen in Iraq to great effect, keeping the Afghan government weak and U.S.-led NATO forces on their heels. The result: the United States is still attempting to tamp down on Taliban momentum today.

4. The opportunity costs.

Aside from missed opportunities in Afghanistan, the Iraq War-effort was all-consuming, pulling resources from all other areas of U.S. defense policy. Relationships with key allies were allowed to grow stale and U.S. prestige around the world plummeted. Fighting in Iraq was realized to be a diversion from combating al Qaeda, drawing funding that could have gone towards a litany of other efforts to effectively counter terrorism.

5. The strengthening of Iran and al Qaeda.

The power vacuum left after the fall of Saddam and the lack of adequate U.S. forces left room for U.S. adversaries to fill the void. Counter to what some still believe, Al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq prior to 2003. Instead, it was only in the post-Saddam climate that they gained a foothold in the form of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The group continues to carry out attacks against civilians to this day, keeping the Iraqi government on edge.

In the end, it was not the United States that gained the most strategically from invading Iraq, but the Shiite-dominated Islamic Republic of Iran. In removing Saddam Hussein’s predominantly Sunni regime from power, the U.S. opened the door to a greater Iranian influence in the region. That influence has been seen playing out counter to U.S. interests in situations such as allowing Iranian planes bearing weapons for Syria to cross Iraqi airspace.

“The end of former Iraq President Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime represents a consider- able global good, and a nascent democratic Iraqi republic partnered with the United States could potentially yield benefits in the future,” CAP’s Matt Duss writes in the Iraq War Ledger, A Look at the War’s Human, Financial, and Strategic Costs, “But when weighing those possible benefits against the costs of the Iraq intervention, there is simply no conceivable calculus by which Operation Iraqi Freedom can be judged to have been a successful or worthwhile policy. The war was intended to show the extent of America’s power. It succeeded only in showing its limits.”