@ Sarah:
The US God complex? Sara, perhaps that’s how it might be percieved within the US but as a Brit allow me to spell out the facts of Global Security:
The US has such a massive military hegenomy around the world that we in Europe have simply been letting our armed forces wane and shrivel. To put it simply YOU, the US are our Armed Forces.
We’ve lived under the US security blanket since the end of WWII. The US needs to be invincible, it needs to be a gleaming colossus that stands over us all because the alternative is somewhat horrific.
The US is by default the military defender of the free world, we can run around proclaiming your arrogance and your upgunned attitude to your Armed Forces but the bottom line is that we simply couldn’t have such small standing armies without the existence of a massively powerful US military.
Terrorists attacked in 2001 because they were sure they could get away with it and would suffer no sizable retaliation. Because in today’s age a paramilitary force can operate out of a rogue state and commit massive-scale attacks, shielded by 20th century principles of untrammeled sovereignty.
The US, for all its bluster actually took the fight to terrorists. Iraq may have been a detour but now that US forces are actively fighting terrorists there pulling out is no different from accepting defeat at the hand of an enemy.
Military defeat by terrorists is unconscionable if we want to live in a world free from the threat of terrorism.
Falling back doesn’t work against such a foe.
