Iraq - A Strategic Blunder?

[Ken White]

You may see a grand strategy with some 'disruption' effect doing magical things in the world. I see a wasted decade instead.

Your prerogative. We can disagree on that. I think the relative state of the ME in general to include Saudi Arabia and Iran, and of south asia to include Pakistan and India -- and of the US -- in ten or twenty years or so will be the true measure. Add China into that mix; yes they're smart and have done well -- but at a cost. We'll see what that cost is over the next decade, I think. All those ancillary efforts are low key, below a lot of radars but they are ongoing and were all part of that strategery.

See; I'm a German (surprise!), and Germany has learned long ago (and then re-learned and again re-learned, hopefully with lasting effect) that it's the economy, stupid!We had the greatest expansion of our wealth in times of peace with little participation in foreign political conflict (we weren't supplying the refrigerator of the Cold War).

True -- but your economy sure did benefit from that refrigeration...

The U.S., UK, France and most of all Russia have not applied this insight very well...The U.S: economy poisoned itself during the last decade. An energetic national policy could have turned this around, but the nation's attention was in great part captured by foreign affairs and partisan clashes instead.

Agreed. I also agree with the rest of your comment on the economic issues.

An energetic U.S. national economic policy could have harnessed the nation's potential for urgent and necessary repairs during the GWB administrations. Instead, the attention (and fortune) was wasted on great power games.
The Chinese were smarter, much more subtle - and much more successful.

True to an extent. You along with many non-US commentators (and entirely too many US commentators who should know better) do not understand the dysfunction deliberately built into the US political system that precludes National efforts (other than in time of existential peril). Many also miss the political reality of two not particularly different political parties -- you did not -- who continually jockey for political power to the exclusion of concern for the nation. They really need to be reined in, both of them.

Had Bush's four predecessor's done better handling the probes from the ME from 1979 until 2000, 9/11 might likely not have occurred and things would have been different (but likely not radically different on the economic front due to the aforementioned political problems and intended dysfunction). Instead he believed he had to respond to a provocation and a potential low order threat (Islamist fundamentalism anger direct at the west) to which he believed his fellow western leaders (and his likely replacement) probably would not adequately reply. I believe that was a valid assessment.

I wouldn't have done it the way he did but he did what he believed necessary with the tools he had available in a way that worked. I do believe it or something like it was very necessary and long overdue. Had James Earl Carter not so badly mishandled the Tehran Embassy seizure in 1979, US history would almost certainly have been quite different. Had Carter's successors handled subsequent probes and actions against US interests differently...

None of them did it right and Bush had to pick up the tab.

Due to flawed execution -- not his fault, mostly but not entirely the Army's -- the success was not as great as it potentially might have been. I believe it still to be a qualified success at this point with potential to be a fully accorded success when a number of ongoing efforts come to fruition over the next ten years or so. Many make the mistake of looking at Iraq in isolation. It was only the most visible face of the entire effort -- very deliberately and purposefully distractingly so...

So while I generally agree with your comments on policies and economic aspects, that has little to do with Iraq as -- or not -- a strategic blunder. It was a strategic choice whose total impact is still to be fully determined. That it had an adverse impact on the US economy cannot be denied. As far as social and political impacts -- too early to tell. We'll see.