The ultimate failure of Iraq came, not because we tried to fix it (which, in hindsight was maybe a mistake), but because we abandoned the country and left a power vacuum. It takes generations for change to happen.
Of course, we struggle in our own country now with such mundane things as the bill of rights and the constitution, no thanks to our leftard school system.
Believing that America could “fix” Iraq was the mistake.
It’s an arrogant stupidity endemic to liberal utopians, of which neoconservatives are a glittering example.
The mistake is a very obvious one to those who don’t willfully ignore the role of culture and religion in shaping what a country will be.
The Bush 43 administration was loaded with people who couldn’t imagine that there are societies where religion will muscle aside democracy and free markets and all of the other western paraphernalia that they thought they could graft at will onto Iraq’s thousand year old tribal culture. Starting with the genius at the top who happily chirped that “Islam is a religion of peace”.