So it's an interesting question: knowing everything we do today, could Iraq have been stabilized and returned to Iraqi control significantly faster, and with many fewer lost lives than, in fact, it was?”
Yes, I believe that it could have been. The left in this country did a great deal to demoralize us and to lend moral support to the enemy, all simply to undermine the Bush administration. If the MSM and the left (but I repeat myself) had been enthusiastically for victory in the Iraq war, I believe we would have won cheaper and quicker. Remember Abu Ghraib?
Agreed. As in Vietnam, where America's defeat was engineered not on the battlefield, but by Dems in Congress, in Iraq the left did everything it could to demonize and demoralize the US military effort there, and to exaggerate the problems.
All that said, "success" in any enterprise -- military, business, "nation building," etc. -- is defined as meeting or exceeding managed expectations. For a simple example: if my business earns $2 per share, is that good or bad? Well, if I predicted $1 then I'm a hero. But if I had predicted $3 then I'm a goat.
Truth is, no one expected such a long drawn out affair, especially after the super-quick military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. My question is: knowing everything we do now, what all coulda, shoulda & woulda been done different to save lives, treasure and time?
More to the point: will our current President learn from President Bush's mistakes, will he simply repeat them, or invent new ones?