888: Well spoken. Well spoken indeed.
Aakash: Your position may be a soundly reasoned on philosophical grounds, with excellent footnotes and annotations (did you major in English? Poli-Sci?), but your well-meaning reasoning completely ignores the reality of the post 9/11 world. If George Bush had played his cards slightly differently, we would not have stopped at Iraq, but would have steamrollered the entire pack of animals in the ME – Syria, Iran, hell even Saudi Arabia would have been boxing up their Wahabi crazies. The US was completely ENRAGED after 9/11, sick to death of Islamists ever since the Iranian hostage crisis. The “Death to America” crowd was going to get some smackdown no matter what. Bush picked the next-biggest immediate, proven threat on the table after the Taliban-protected AQI’s were toppled and OIF was born. Like many other wars we have ever fought to a true completion (i.e. NOT the 1991 Gulf War), it was messier and more difficult than we hoped, and we can still “lose the peace”, just like we did in Viet Nam. The winner of the combat phase in Iraq has been decided. The winner of the peace will take much longer. We are in the same situation as we were in 1945. The question is, will we consolidate the gains made or squander them. Does your textbook conservatism lead you to think WWII was a mistake too?
I was in High School during the “America Held Hostage” days, was a BIG Reagan supporter and have worked in the Defense Industry most of my career. I thought many of Bill Clinton’s interventions abroad were stupid precisely because they weren’t in our vital interests (e.g. Somalia, Haiti, etc.), while those that were (Iraq, Al Queda terrorism) were ignored. It is impossible to argue that a stable, democratic Iraq is not a huge boon to US and Western interests (to say nothing of the Iraqi’s interests). Sometimes the rigorous logic leads you to the wrong place.
