Iraq

There seem to be a fair number of people here who think the US invasion of Iraq was a lousy idea.  I'm one of them myself, though my quarrel is more with the execution than with the goal of removing Saddam.  I'm wondering, though... since we don't like what was done, what do we think should have been done, back in 2003?

Here are the choices, as I see them with benefit of hindsight:

1.  Preserve the status quo - leave Saddam in power, but with his power constrained by military and economic sanctions.

2.  Surrender - Leave Saddam in power, lift sanctions, and allow him to reassert his authority over the whole of Iraq, pump and sell oil freely, and rebuild his military force.

3.  Remove Saddam but install a compliant dictator (or exile junta) in his place.

4.  Remove Saddam, bail out, and leave the Iraqis to their own devices.

5.  All other sugestions welcome.

My own preferred option at the time was for the US to lead a really multilateral effort to have Saddam removed and to work with the Iraqis to promote the evolution of a new democratic government - with the acknowledgement from the start that this was likely to take decades, not years.  Looking back, I'm not at all sure that would have been possible.  I do think that a more sustained and more credible attempt would have made unilateral action a great deal more credible.  

I'm genuinely curious: we all know that what was done didn't work out nearly as well as we were lead to believe it would... what do we think would have worked better?  Seems to me that with the advantage of hindsight we should all have opinions on that... 

OD members should be interested in the analysis of the crisis of American military power offered by Andew Bacevich and excerpted on Tom Englehardt's TomDispatch site.

Here's the flavor of Bacevich's argument:

Valor does not offer the measure of an army's greatness, nor does
fortitude, nor durability, nor technological sophistication. A great
army is one that accomplishes its assigned mission. Since George W.
Bush inaugurated his global war on terror, the armed forces of the
United States have failed to meet that standard.Valor does not offer the measure of an army's greatness, nor does fortitude, nor durability, nor technological sophistication. A great
army is one that accomplishes its assigned mission. Since George W.
Bush inaugurated his global war on terror, the armed forces of the
United States have failed to meet that standard. 

...

As long as U.S. forces sustained their reputation for invincibility, it
remained possible to pretend that the constitutional order and the
American way of life were in good health. The concept of waging an
open-ended global campaign to eliminate terrorism retained a modicum of
plausibility. After all, how could anyone or anything stop the
unstoppable American soldier?

Call that reputation into question, however, and everything else
unravels. This is what occurred when the Iraq War went sour. The ills
afflicting our political system, including a deeply irresponsible
Congress, broken national security institutions, and above all an
imperial commander in chief not up to the job, became all but
impossible to ignore. So, too, did the self-destructive elements
inherent in the American way of life -- especially an increasingly
costly addiction to foreign oil, universally deplored and almost as
universally indulged. More noteworthy still, the prospect of waging war
on a global scale for decades, if not generations, became preposterous.

 I guess I'll start with John.

John McCain is a neocon. Neocon diplomacy is basically finding new ways to get the message out that the US is superior, which always goes over so well with the rest of the world…

The League of Democracies is one of his lovely ideas. Kicking out Russia from the G8 until it behaves responsibly is another. Using arrogance and hypocrisy to explain the unnecessary push for US ideological dominance is not an effective way to negotiate anything.

 The only reflection his experience has to offer about the failure in Iraq is that we didn’t send enough troops. What about why we went in? 

McCain has been 'the champion for the hard-line, neoconservative thinkers" for some time now, so I cant forsee that understanding occuring anytime soon.

  http://tinyurl.com/6lkk2l

John McCain and Obama are very similar in their "America has to rebuild our image and reconnect with our allies" talk but I don’t believe McCain can do that. Not only is he a jerk, but he hasn’t acknowledged the failure in (amongst other problems) the ideology that got us into Iraq and Obama has. There is some kind of recognition of our mistakes in the Bush neocon foreign policy with Obama which is another way of saying  " I don’t intend to continue with the same approach" on the other hand, John McCain is saying that he will but  he will be a better neocon than Bush.  He will be successful where Bush failed. With that in mind, I cant imagine how he could possibly “revitalize the country's purpose and standing in the world” witih more of what has ruined it. How will he be a better communicator of "the cause" questionable in intentions that it is, than Bush?

 http://tinyurl.com/3b66cb 

Neocon foreign policy is never-ending war, never-ending nation building and everyone knows that now.

I think it’s irresponsible, arrogant and idealistic to believe that it could possibly be good for any country in the world.

To have someone in charge that wants to continue down the same destructive path we’ve been taking the Middle East and ourselves for the last 8 years is insane. I don’t know how else to describe it.

 It will validate extremism and increase terrorism, and our country’s economic condition will continue to worsen, and the list goes on…

It’s not a necessary foreign policy; it’s not even remotely good.