Posted on 03/17/2013 11:19:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
Ten years ago this week, Americans were about to be introduced to a strange new concept, as they awaited the U.S. war to bring regime change in Iraq. Coined by American military officers, it encapsulated a situation in which everything went right until everything went wrong. The term was "catastrophic success."
But before the war began, supporters were bursting with confidence. Vice President Dick Cheney predicted that "we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." The Pentagon expected to withdraw most troops by summer's end. Reconstruction would be a bargain because Iraq would pay for it with oil revenues.
Wrong, wrong and wrong again. By the time we finally left Iraq, more than eight years had elapsed, 4,486 Americans had died and $1.7 trillion had gone up the chimney. Despite our success in removing Saddam Hussein from power, the Iraq war stands as the nation's most grievous foreign policy blunder since Vietnam.
It was the result of a toxic combination of ignorance, arrogance and impatience. But with the exception of Cheney and a few others, those traits are far less pronounced today. The public and policymakers learned much from the experience, and the lessons have stuck.
Iraq became, as novelist David Foster Wallace would put it, a supposedly fun thing we'll never do again. It dramatized the dangers of plunging into a major war in the absence of a powerful national interest. It exposed the hazards of a long-term occupation in an alien culture. It showed the need to consider the worst-case scenario.
Americans underwent a similar disillusionment from the Vietnam War, which left an aversion to intervention that conservatives lamented as "the Vietnam syndrome." But because our failure occurred during the Cold War, it was taken as a victory for world communism. The country split between those who thought it was doomed from the start and those who believed we could have won if not for the appeasers and draft-dodgers back home.
Regret for the Iraq war is far more widespread. At the beginning, 62 percent of Americans supported the invasion -- with most erroneously believing that Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Just three years later, 63 percent said the war was a mistake.
There is clearly an "Iraq syndrome" today, but it's not really controversial. After more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, not many people are itching to relive the experience elsewhere.
President Barack Obama, who opposed the invasion of Iraq, encountered little resistance to winding up the U.S. mission there, and he faces little as U.S. troops stream toward the door in Afghanistan.
Obama took note of the Iraq disaster in addressing Libya, where liberal as well as conservative hawks urged him to use force against dictator Moammar Gadhafi. His defense secretary publicly questioned the option, and Obama drew criticism for his reluctance to intervene.
When he finally did, it was on novel terms: He insisted that our allies take the lead, kept our role to a minimum, avoided U.S. casualties and wrapped it up before the commercial break.
Crucial to that approach was his refusal to deploy ground troops or assume the slightest responsibility for what happened next in Libya. He's been even warier in Syria: To be persuaded to use air power, Obama would need an implement measuring at least 11 feet, since he wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
All this reflects a sharp shift in popular sentiment. Summarizing the results of a poll it sponsored last year, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs reported that "with a strong sense that the wars have overstretched our military and strained our economic resources, (Americans) prefer to avoid the use of military force if at all possible."
There is one notable exception: Iran. Obama has vowed to do whatever it takes to prevent the mullahs from getting nuclear weapons, and most Americans favor military action if Iran doesn't give up that quest.
The key here is that everyone figures we can do the job from the safety of the skies. If it called for large numbers of boots on the ground, we'd resign ourselves to Iranian nukes -- which we may anyway.
That's a symptom of how we've changed since Cheney and Co. were in office. In a new documentary, he affirms, in a reference that includes Iraq, "If I had to do it over again, I'd do it in a minute." The rest of us? Not a chance.
Gosh, a Chicago Tribune writer who doesn’t like Republicans. How rare. Leonidas and the 300 Spartans LOST at Thermopylae. I guess that was a mistake, too. Hey Spanky, Chicago Tribune hack, you’re not smart enough to comment on Grand Strategy. Stick to writing what you know about like flower shows and missing pets.
I've got to disagree with that. The Iraq war was the nation's most grievous foreign policy blunder, period.
“Obama took note of the Iraq disaster in addressing Libya, where liberal as well as conservative hawks urged him to use force against dictator Moammar Gadhafi.”
Excuse me, but I find this passage rather ridiculous. I do not remember ANYONE wanting to get involved in Libya, except Obama.
As for the rest of the article, I still contend going into Iraq was the correct decision. Post 9/11, we needed to get rid of ANYONE spporting terrorism. Saddam was a thug who needed removing.
Our problem is the terms we used to decalre “victory”.
going in there and getting rid of the murderous dictator...ok i can deal with that. staying there 10 years screwing around “trying to build their nation for them”....sorry, that’s wrong.... and worse, doesn’t work.
if we have a need for a military base or two there (and we well might considering the location....!!!!)...fine, do that. leave the rest of the country to the natives. don’t try to “build” their country for them....they’ve been there for 6000 years and they know how to make bricks (their close relations throw bricks at Christians and Jews in Egypt, Syria, and Israel)...... and they even know how to pile their bricks up into nice tall towers (like Tower of Babel(on)....)
leave them to their own damned business. Their religion makes them a hostile country anyway.... a very unfriendly country. So long as they don’t have a dangerous, aggressive dictator in charge, leave them to their own devices.
just my thoughts. same for Afghanistan and Pakistan and all the new countries Obama has sent our fine military or subversive “intelligence” forces in to install Islamic terrorist regimes as part of the new World Islamic Caliphate he’s constructing. GO to such hostile countries only when necessary and do not try to colonize or “build” them in our image. It ain’t gonna work. Ask the 10 million Christians in Egypt and the 2 million Christians in Syria who are all fighting to defend their lives now against the Islamic forces Obama has unleashed against them
I agree, that was the whole reason for going into Iraq, nothing else.
I have contempt for every Benedict Arnold now protesting the Iraq offensives.
Re: I have contempt for every Benedict Arnold now protesting the Iraq offensives
,
I have to agree. I spent 13 months in Iraq under just about every combat situation possible and I felt the gratitude of the Iraqi’s for our being there. We did NOT invade Iraq, we freed Iraq from an unspeakably cruel dictatorship. Unfortunately under the current US policy of withdrawal the war is being lost not in the deserts of Iraq, but in Washington. :-(
It’s spineless, lazy, political correctness that’s driving this criticism against the Iraq investments.
Thank you for your service to both the US and Iraq; a truly honorable assignment that’s not getting 1/10th the credit deserved.
But he still takes credit for getting Bin Laden, even though much of the intelligence that led to Bin Laden was found in Iraq.
Fascinating how so many faux conservatives now agree with Obama that Iraq war was wrong.
Rand Paul and Ron Paul lead like pied pipers the faux conservatives with a choir of code pink gloriously singing along.
Iraq disproved the central tenet of what lead to 911:
America is a paper tiger—OBL
the us could risk thousands in combat to displace any sovereign. The costs are now higher for the supremacists.
I care little for the neo isolationists.
Thank you.....JM
obama DID NOT draw down the mission in Iraq. That was done via the US/Iraqi SOFA agreement, which was signed on 17 Nov 2008, the day before obama was elected.
The author of this article can't even get recent history right.
correct
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