Andrew Apostolou in a piece that manages to be both refreshing and sobering at the same time:
That mistakes have been made in postwar Iraq is not in doubt, but that predicted disasters have not transpired is rarely acknowledged. The Coalition, like the U.N., planned for a humanitarian catastrophe when there was none. Contrary to some pessimists, Iraq has not fallen apart. Far from destroying Iraq’s territorial integrity, the Coalition has restored it, bringing the Kurdish safe haven back into Iraq. There have been remarkably few revenge killings so far, thanks to the Coalition presence, and equally little of the predicted ethnic conflict. Hundreds of thousands of ethnically cleansed Kurds have not rushed back to their homes nor have they punished their Arab oppressors. There has been little of the reverse ethnic cleansing seen in Kosovo where the Albanians often dispensed rough justice to their former Serb overlords.
He’s no pollyanna, though. There are plenty of problems, even if they are smaller than those we anticipated. Read the rest, and take note of the last sentence.
[T]here is no surer path to defeat than to rush into the arms of those who wish we had never toppled Saddam in the first place.
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