According to Slate’s reading of Bob Woodward’s latest political gossip-fest, Plan of Attack:
Karl Rove, a Norwegian-American, is obsessed with the “historical duplicity” of the Swedes, who seized Norway back in 1814. This nationalism manifests itself as hatred for Swedish weapons inspector Hans Blix.
So if you were wondering why our intelligence was such a mess, now you know: blame Sweden.
And come to think of it, wasn’t Hans Blix not only entirely right but entirely successful at ridding Iraq of WMDs via the inspections regime? Because they didn’t have any, actually, so I guess all that heavily disparaged Clintonian sanctions-and-swatting-flies stuff was in fact wholly effective. Boy, I’m glad we traded in those policies for our Glorious Liberation!