Was The Iraq War A Success Or Blunder?

[Mr Natural]

More of a fiasco than a blunder.

 

[indiajo]

Well, let's see: As a result of the war, the Iraqi people got to hold their real election in decades, and that election led other Arab peoples to demonstrate and push harder for real elections in their countries. I'd call that a pretty positive development.

Was the war perfect? Were all results of the war positive? Did things go exactly as we'd hoped and planned? Of course not.

Was WW II an unqualified success when it led the enslavement of several Eastern European nations under Soviet tyranny? Yet, was it worth fighting? You see, things aren't so simple when it comes to judging the outcomes of wars.

Liberals just can't come to grips with the simple fact that if Obama had left a residual force in Iraq, we wouldn't be facing this crisis now. A sufficiently strong residual force would have nipped this attack in the bud, if ISIS had dared to attack Iraq at all. Maliki basically told Obama and Biden to go jump in a lake, and they scampered off like the amateurs they are. A President McCain would not have allowed such a thing to happen and we wouldn't be faced with the mess we're now facing there.

Well, yeah. We can see that clearly watcihing the news from the region.
Actually, are you serious?

None of this countries, exept Egypt with some deductions, are grown nations. They are artificial states, designed by the British and the French mainly after the fall of the Turkish empire, with no homogenous population that could naturally constitute a state or nation.
They consist of tribes, often bloody enemies, and it seems to me you really do not understand that.
Islam, with its major directions Sunna and Shia, does not quite make the situation less complicated.
The only thing that held this countries together were dictators and autocratic systems over the last hundred years.
And then you come and cheer about elections.
The point is, the people there did not demonstrate for free elections, the more convincing opinion/strategy may win or things like that.
They wanted, sorry, US controlled or supported governments out. Which was widely used by muslim extremists. Well, you may cancel extremists.
A majority of people there is mentally stuck in medieval ages. Dont's let yourself be confused if they use smartphones or RPGs.
What they elected were tribe leaders, if this stalled or was not possible, the religious extremists.
In Afghanistan you installed a Pashtun president, corrupt to the bones, but very polite and always well dressed. The Pashtuns are a southern tribe in Afg. that reaches over the border into Pakistan. the rest of the country does not trust them further as they can throw a piano.
In Libya you staged an uprise of some southern tribes ageinst Gaddafi. Who also was a member of a tribe that controlled the country. The dirty job this time was done by France and Britain who bombed the shit out of mostly civilians. Did you see the pictures of Sirte? That's really what I call making friends.
What you may not know, despite the dictatorship Libya used its oil money to give the people there a quite comfortable life. They had free healthcare, if young people married the got a own house as property from the government, and so on. I never heard that anybody fled from Libya. Never. And we are quite close to it.
I always considered Gaddafi as a criminal. But what the people there have now is pure hell.

Irak. Well, Saddam was surely a beast. But, besides the war with Chomeini led Iran, where again the US encouraged him to start it, people could live a comparatively normal life there.
Actually, his annexion of Kuwait was also signalled to him as award to fight Iran for 8 years, but whatever. (besides, the killed babies in the incubators were a lie.)
So you fought a war for the kuwaiti oil millionaires who took shelter in Saudi Arabia or Dubai, lost a few hundred soldiers and were trigger happy.
Actually I just ananlyze this as an action to wipe out his military.

10 years later the US finished the job because he did not give in. Not because he was connected with terrorists. Dictators generally do not like to cooperate with crazy people.
What Irak got was a few hundredthousand deaths, destroyed cities and infrastructure and every now and then a bomb on a crowded marketplace.
The sure love the US for bringing them elections.

Iran: this was actually a quite modern state, their problem started with WWII, when the western allies needed Iran as transit country for military equipment to the Soviet Union. Iran was occupied by british and soviet armies, and the rest of the story fills books about violent rivalry between communists and royals, tribes and religious fundamentalists, all fired up by the dictator like Shah Reza Pahlevi who was installed and supported by the US. The British wanted another Shah, but he did not speak Persian language. Ironically, his counterpart, Chomeini, was pampered in France. This then led directly to the point above.

What a diplomatic and military mess.

I will not exaggerate the role the Brits, French and the US played in the Pacific after Japan was defeated, and discovered that the Soviets were the wrong allies.
(and before that letting the nationalist Chinese down so that Mao could take over)
Plus supressing the old colonies in Indochine, installing a dictatorship on the Phillipines.
Then taking over the war against the Vietnamese from the French (originally they wanted only to get rid of the french colonists) which finally tore Cambodia into the war which led directly to the Pol Pot's Red Khmer and the killing fields, which was then ironcally ended by the bad Vietnamese.

You can call me a bloody German, I won't mind. I was born short after the war, and had the full reeducation program. But, you see, with the years going by more and more is uncovered about who else had his bloody fingers in both big european wars, the Russians open their archves and everything looks quite different to what I was told all this years. This does not mean denying that we had a pretty ugly dictatorship or want to leverage the murdered Jews with the murdered American Indians, just saying.

But everywhere the US is threatening to bring freedom and democracy, people better take cover.

 

[georgephillip]

It's becoming more clear the Iraq War was a success if the goal was to fracture Iraq, Libya, and Syria into their historical components:

"In the heady early days of the Arab Spring, many people imagined that the Arab world might finally be entering a period of greater democratization, one that would inevitably lead -- so the thinking went -- to greater social unity.

"That didn't happen.

"The 'people's revolution' in Egypt was subverted, and the fledgling democracy movement in Bahrain was crushed with Saudi military assistance.

"But more devastating than that is the ongoing fracturing of nations into their historical component parts.

"The world may be focused on the rifts in Iraq between its Shiite, Sunni and Kurd communities -- but the same 'Balkanization' has already occurred in Libya, which is now effectively split into three de facto states.

"Almost surely next on the chopping block is Syria.

"Syria's savage civil war has divided the nation into a patchwork of government and rebel-held zones, and there is now talk within Bashar al-Assad's embattled regime of slicing off the Alawite-dominated western portions of Syria to create a more defendable mini-state."

Why the Middle East's borders will never be the same again - CNN.com

 

[Erand7899]

The neo-cons can't get the thought through their oil-soaked brains that

(1) the levers of military power have changed with nuclear weaponry

(2) the American people will not tolerate the sacrifices in lives, treasure, and time necessary to recreate a Middle East nation in harmony with our national interests

Iraq II has been the greatest foreign policy mistake in our history.

The levers of military power will always be the same, regardless of the weapons available for use.

The removal of Saddam was a success, both militarily and diplomatic. The aftermath of that removal turned into a mess when serious mistakes were made in the political decisions to disband the military, and to remove all the Saddam people from every position in the government.

Saddam had already preplanned the insurgency, and those actions played right into his hands. Then, Al Quada got involved and things went to hell.

Our military got things back under control, and Iraq had a chance to determine its own destiny, but then Obama got elected, and eventually, things went to hell again.

 

[JoeB131]

How Will History Judge President George W. Bush?

However, Bush, 66 years of age, says he is “comfortable” with both his life and legacy and defends his decisions on Iraq.

History will judge the decision to go to war in Iraq. It should be remembered this was a bi-partisan decision at the time and was backed by majority of Americans. As the war dragged on and no WMD’s were found, opinion turned against our involvement in Iraq.

Growing up during the Vietnam War, I never thought I would live to see the day that Americans went as tourists in large numbers to visit Vietnam. It has become a booming honeymoon destination for many American couples.

If Iraq becomes a successful democracy and a future tourist site for Americans and others to visit, Bush 43’s vision of freedom and democracy in Iraq and the Middle East will be revisited and his political standing as president will go up.

That scenario is quite hard to imagine now in 2013 but as Vietnam reminds us anything is possible as time goes by and soothes many wounds.

How Will History Judge President George W. Bush?

The Vietnamese don't look back and say, "Wow, I'm so glad that the Americans came in here and bombed our cities, defoliated our forests with carcinogens, forced our grandmothers into prostitution and routinely killed our men. What a swell guy LBJ and Nixon were."

Vietnam didn't become a democracy. It's kind of like China, where the communist rulers are letting big corporations come in and exploit the shit out of their people.

 

[The Rabbi]

Before the war the U.S. set goals for what we wanted to achieve. The US achieved every one of those goals and handed a relatively peaceful, relatively stable Iraq to Obama.
And then things went to shit.

 

[LoneLaugher]

Before the war the U.S. set goals for what we wanted to achieve. The US achieved every one of those goals and handed a relatively peaceful, relatively stable Iraq to Obama.
And then things went to shit.

Nope.

 

[JoeB131]

Before the war the U.S. set goals for what we wanted to achieve. The US achieved every one of those goals and handed a relatively peaceful, relatively stable Iraq to Obama.
And then things went to shit.

The amazing thing is you say that without any irony.

Iraq was a screwed up mess when we pulled out. It was a screwed up mess when we toppled Saddam.

What we did was essentially go to the Sunnis and said, "Here's a bunch of money so long as you play nice just long enough for us to leave. "

Because Congress let Bush save face with the surge instead of pulling the plug on the operation then and there.

 

[ron4342]

With the recent chaos in Iraq, this seems like a pretty good time to ask this question. What say you?

During the first Gulf War President George H. W. Bush was asked why he did not take out Saddam when he had the chance. Bush answered that removing Saddam would destabilize the region and lead to civil war. AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAS HAPPENED.
Thank you george w. bush for being too stupid to learn from your father. The 4,400 who died and the tens of thousands who have had their lives ripped apart for nothing thank you.

 

[ron4342]

Before the war the U.S. set goals for what we wanted to achieve. The US achieved every one of those goals and handed a relatively peaceful, relatively stable Iraq to Obama.
And then things went to shit.

A typical load of crap from the rabbi. What bush handed Obama was a ticking time bomb where the different factions in Iraq were just waiting for the US to move out. Oh, and as far as moving out of Iraq it was george w. bush who signed the agreement to withdraw American forces from Iraq. President Obama merely followed through on the agreement bush had sign with the Iraq government.
Obama did try to leave some forces in Iraq for just the kind of uprising we are seeing now but he was turned down by the Iraqi government. The sticking point was that Iraq demanded that American troops be subject to Iraqi law rather than to US military law. Obama WISELY refused to allow that. Imagine the cries that would be heard if an American soldier were tried under Sharia Law.

 

[The Rabbi]

Before the war the U.S. set goals for what we wanted to achieve. The US achieved every one of those goals and handed a relatively peaceful, relatively stable Iraq to Obama.
And then things went to shit.

The amazing thing is you say that without any irony.

Iraq was a screwed up mess when we pulled out. It was a screwed up mess when we toppled Saddam.

What we did was essentially go to the Sunnis and said, "Here's a bunch of money so long as you play nice just long enough for us to leave. "

Because Congress let Bush save face with the surge instead of pulling the plug on the operation then and there.

Maybe you should take that up with Obama. Her'es what he said.
FLASHBACK?Obama: ?We?re Leaving Behind a Sovereign, Stable and Self-Reliant Iraq? | CNS News

When President Barack Obama removed the last U.S. forces from Iraq in December 2011, he announced that—as he had planned—the U.S. was leaving behind a “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government.”

It was a "moment of success," he said.

On Feb. 27, 2009, a little more than a month after his first inauguration, Obama gave a speech at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina that the White House entitled, “Responsibly Ending the War in Iraq.”

Obama said then that his strategy was based on the “achievable goal” of a “sovereign, stable and self-reliant” Iraq--and that he intended to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, as had been envisioned in the Status of Forces agreement negotiated by the Bush Administration.

 

[The Rabbi]

Before the war the U.S. set goals for what we wanted to achieve. The US achieved every one of those goals and handed a relatively peaceful, relatively stable Iraq to Obama.
And then things went to shit.

A typical load of crap from the rabbi. What bush handed Obama was a ticking time bomb where the different factions in Iraq were just waiting for the US to move out. Oh, and as far as moving out of Iraq it was george w. bush who signed the agreement to withdraw American forces from Iraq. President Obama merely followed through on the agreement bush had sign with the Iraq government.
Obama did try to leave some forces in Iraq for just the kind of uprising we are seeing now but he was turned down by the Iraqi government. The sticking point was that Iraq demanded that American troops be subject to Iraqi law rather than to US military law. Obama WISELY refused to allow that. Imagine the cries that would be heard if an American soldier were tried under Sharia Law.

Did we not set goals for the war?
Yes.
DId we not achieve all of them?
Yes.
Did we not leave a stable Iraq?
Yes, see Obama's comments in my last post.

QED: Ron, you're a partisan Obama cock sniffing moron.

 

[blackhawk]

With the recent chaos in Iraq, this seems like a pretty good time to ask this question. What say you?

The initial military operation to topple Saddam was a success the post Saddam part was handled badly and was a blunder the surge strategy to counter that was a success the failure to extend the status of forces agreement was a blunder.I have no idea what will be done to deal with the situation in Iraq now if anything overall it has been a series of both blunder and success.

 

[itfitzme]

With the recent chaos in Iraq, this seems like a pretty good time to ask this question. What say you?

It was shere stupidity in every premise.

 

[Ibentoken]

Both. Iraq was a success when Bush left office, and now Iraq is a mess, Obama's blunder. We have a skunk president. He's black and white and everything he touches stinks.

 

[itfitzme]

Before the war the U.S. set goals for what we wanted to achieve. The US achieved every one of those goals and handed a relatively peaceful, relatively stable Iraq to Obama.
And then things went to shit.

It was never stable. Or do you call a two legged stool stable because it stand up when you hold it?

 

[The Rabbi]

Before the war the U.S. set goals for what we wanted to achieve. The US achieved every one of those goals and handed a relatively peaceful, relatively stable Iraq to Obama.
And then things went to shit.

It was never stable. Or do you call a two legged stool stable because it stand up when you hold it?

Obama called it stable. Casualties had declined to levels below Chicago. They had staged two democratic elections. Of course it was stable. And had Obama actually done what he said in 2011, this wouldn't have happened. Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

 

[Ibentoken]

Before the war the U.S. set goals for what we wanted to achieve. The US achieved every one of those goals and handed a relatively peaceful, relatively stable Iraq to Obama.
And then things went to shit.

Nope.

That's not good enough. Explain why you disagree. If you want to run things then you're responsible.

 

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

This one takes some real honest reflection. It's a tough question.

Not if you're a Ron fan, Paul.

 

[ron4342]

Before the war the U.S. set goals for what we wanted to achieve. The US achieved every one of those goals and handed a relatively peaceful, relatively stable Iraq to Obama.
And then things went to shit.

A typical load of crap from the rabbi. What bush handed Obama was a ticking time bomb where the different factions in Iraq were just waiting for the US to move out. Oh, and as far as moving out of Iraq it was george w. bush who signed the agreement to withdraw American forces from Iraq. President Obama merely followed through on the agreement bush had sign with the Iraq government.
Obama did try to leave some forces in Iraq for just the kind of uprising we are seeing now but he was turned down by the Iraqi government. The sticking point was that Iraq demanded that American troops be subject to Iraqi law rather than to US military law. Obama WISELY refused to allow that. Imagine the cries that would be heard if an American soldier were tried under Sharia Law.

Did we not set goals for the war?
Yes. Not really. There was no real planning for what would happen after we won the war. As the war dragged on the reasons for the war kept changing. We went there for WMD. Then we were there to remove Saddam. Then we were there to give the Iraqi people democracy. Then we were there to establish an Iraqi state.
DId we not achieve all of them?
Yes. Not really. The questions of democracy and an Iraqi state were never fully resolved.
Did we not leave a stable Iraq? If you wish to call a ticking time bomb a stable country the answer is yes. Or let me put it another way, if the country was stable why is there a civil war now. It couldn't have been to stable.
Yes, see Obama's comments in my last post. If you wish to call a ticking time bomb a stable country the answer is yes. Or let me put it another way, if the country was stable why is there a civil war now. It couldn't have been to stable.

QED: Ron, you're a partisan Obama cock sniffing moron.

I love when people like you cannot respond in an adult manner. It shows just how small and empty your mind is. But if you wish to respond in a childish manner I will speak in a language you understand: KISS MY BROWN SPOT.