Had we been able to replace Saddam with a more pluralistic government, even to the extent of Egypt and Turkey's relatively more authoritarian ones, it would have pulled a critical chunk of the hostile Middle East out of commission.
That being said, there are a number of premises involved in this which I don't accept.
First, that the status quo in Iraq was stable as it was. It wasn't. Saddam's aggression and ruthlessness are a matter of record, and those who thought we could maintain the "no-fly, sanction, inspection" charade forever were and are naive. Does anyone think Saddam would have accepted Iran building nukes when he wasn't? What do you think his eventual solution would have been? If Bush hadn't done it, sooner or later another president would have had to.
Second, the "If I had to do it all over again" thing is a bit lame to start with. If we got to run any of our wars a second time through after the first, I'm sure a lot of things would change. Among them would have been a bit less "kinder and gentler" and a bit more "winning." We got cute with Fallujah the first time around, and had to go back in anyway with real force and probably worse casualties. Letting Sadr go after not one, but two uprisings was a capital mistake that we're paying for right now. Maybe we should have been shooting looters to begin with. Maybe villages filled with insurgents should have been flattened. Maybe the first mistake was not obliterating all of Saddam's military in the first Gulf War.
We have NEVER won a war where the primary concern was not hurting anyone. So far, this one isn't looking to be the exception. Try to imagine any WWII general deciding not to shell a village full of Nazi troops because there are also civilians there.
Third, the idea that somehow if we had filled Afghanistan with as many troops as there are in Iraq, that somehow Afghanistan would have been immune to the IEDs, foreign fighters, incoming Jihadists, and all the rest is ridiculous. That somehow if we had gotten bin Laden on the first day, that radical Islamism would have collapsed. Ignoring Iraq for Afghanistan wouldn't have ended the war. Just moved the battlefield.
Current Events » in reply to Conservatives: If we could do it all over again, would we still invade Iraq?
Loaded question. But yes.
The whole thread (61 posts)
- Conservatives: If we could do it all over again, would we still invade Iraq?
- re: Conservatives: If we could do it all over again, would we still invade Iraq?
- re: Conservatives: If we could do it all over again, would we still invade Iraq?
- Hindsight is always 20/20.
- Probably not
- The problem with conservatives....
- Yes.
- Yes.
- re: Yes.
- Yeap.
- re: excellent, but you forgot one thing:
- That's pretty much how I see it. (n/t)
- Here's where we differ
- re: The two next presidential contenders
- The next President will not have to deal with the war in Iraq.
- And a further point to consider is...
- re: And in november?
- " The American people would never have supported an invasion of a foreign nation which posed no direct threat, simply for economic or geopolitical reasons. "
- your drinking cool-aid if you think it was for those reasons.
- re: " The American people would never have supported an invasion of a foreign nation which posed no direct threat, simply for economic or geopolitical reasons. "
- The next President will not have to deal with the war in Iraq.
- Loaded question. But yes.