We commenced a war in Iraq that was not beyond our matériel resources but which was beyond the resources which we as a democracy were willing to spend to gain victory. Even if we assume, as we should, that Obama threw away the fruits of our military domination in Iraq, it is probable that Iraq would have descended into some sort of civil war absent an American occupation force for generations. To quote Hillary Clinton, what difference did it make?
If Japan failed to use the right tool to gain the natural resources it thought were indispensable for its national survival, so America fought the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even if we had achieved stable Iraq, so what? The war against Islam is not to be won in a two-dimensional geographic model like World War II. Islam is waging an asymmetrical war against the United States and Western values and United States and the West must respond not with 20th century ideas of conquering and holding territory, but with a whole new strategy. The Japanese did not lose World War II because they lacked resolve, they were willing to sacrifice the whole nation in their cause but their problem was that their objective was simply beyond their capacity. In another way, our objective in Iraq was simply beyond our capacity because that capacity is defined by our democracy. As a democracy we simply were not willing to pay the price in blood and treasure to achieve an Iraq that looked like postwar Japan or Germany. In that sense, we misjudged and we committed a cardinal sin of risking national security. It does no good to say we lost because we lacked resolve, in a democracy popular support of the war is as fundamental as munitions or foot soldiers-wishing does not change reality.
If I were an Islamist ambitious to impose sharia on the world, I would hope that the United States would involve itself endlessly in wars of occupation in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and wait until the greatest nation on earth implodes in frustration and bankruptcy. Osama bin Laden is no doubt roasting in one of the hottest corners of hell but I have no doubt he feels a degree of satisfaction that his attack on 911 resulted in entangling America in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama was right for all the wrong reasons when he initially opposed the war in Iraq and he was probably wrong for all the wrong reasons when he withdrew our forces after we had achieved a measure of military success. But the game was never worth the candle, we are weaker, we are poorer, the enemy is stronger, Iraq is worse off, Iran is better off, and we still had no strategy to wage a 21st-century asymmetrical war against this enemy.
