Iraq - A Strategic Blunder?

[Dayuhan]

Who would we respond to in this case? All those probes and provocations were nominally and officially performed by non-state actors from throughout the ME.

Then we respond to the non-state actors, or - to the extent that they had them - their state sponsors.

No one nation was responsible, it was an area attitude that was to be deterred (actually, disrupted is a better word in the near term; the deterrent aspect rolls around to about that 2033 date I mentioned...). Iraq was chosen because it was a pariah state that had a leader even fellow Arab despots could not stand, it had little to no involvement, no Iraqi nationals had been in the attacks to that time, it was geographically central and should have been a military pushover.

"Area attitude" seems to me too vague a focus for blame, and far too vague a focus for retaliation, disruption, or deterrence. We were not attacked by a nation or an area, we were attacked by a specific group of individuals. Of course our response removed any immediate incentive for further attacks: once the desired goal of US military engagement in Muslim territory was accomplished, there was nothing to be gained from further attacks. I can't really see that as an outcome of disruption or deterrence, and I can't see how the invasion of Iraq was meant to disrupt or deter AQ.

That's true in western terms. It is not true in the ME. They understood that we were saying "you folks need to stop allowing your citizens to attack us or this could happen to you." Recall it was preceded by the Bush speech that announced preemptive attacks were on the table

That would have made the Iraq operation a shot across the bow of the Saudis, which would be as hollow a threat as anyone ever made. The US is not going to invade Saudi Arabia, even if more Saudi citizens have a go at the US. We know that, the Saudis know it, and AQ knows it. I'm sure OBL regrets it bitterly - a US invasion of Saudi Arabia would be AQ's wettest dream - but it's not going to happen. Of course in the remote recesses of the neocon ivory tower a few woolly-headed souls clung vaguely to the notion that the emergence of a stable, prosperous democracy would force reform in Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc, but that was fantasy from the start, and I doubt that any of the autocrats in Riyadh or Tehran lost any sleep over the prospect.

We can disagree that they achieved all their aims; they didn't and we didn't. Wars are like that.

They achieved their immediate aim: US engagement in Muslim territory. The goal was to draw the US into Afghanistan; that was achieved. Iraq was a bonus that AQ was unable to exploit fully for a number of reasons, not least their own ineptness. Whether or not they will achieve their long-term goals in Afghanistan remains to be seen, but they aren't doing badly.

The American people are a lot tougher than many think. They are not casualty averse as many believe; they simply want payback for bodies lost in the form of results. They also do a pretty good cost benefit analysis -- thus we are still in Iraq in spite of seven years of screaming to get out

Absolutely. I didn't say or mean that the American deficit of long-term political will or the American vulnerability to wars of attrition were absolute. They aren't. They remain the most vulnerable point in our edifice, and the point that our opponents, especially those with little conventional military force at their disposal, will try to exploit. Whether or not they succeed remains to be seen. Every gambit is a gamble. Osama needed a jihad; without one he and his group would have faded into oblivion. The US was the only available candidate. AQ sucked us in, they got that far successfully. Whether they can chew what they bit off - or whether we can - is still being settled.