Dayuhan,
A well reasoned argument, which is something lacking from the advocates for intervention. Their argument is little more than we should just go, and Americans are rightfully leery of that approach. Seems we thought we could predict the future with a high degree of accuracy many times in the past only to be disappointed. Not too many American leaders would commit U.S. troops to a conflict they didn't think they could win in unless it was truly self-defense where they had no choice.
An excerpt from the following article hits home to me, most of our interventions have simply made the situation worse, regardless of whether the intervention was direct or indirect. I think we need to go back and review the few successes we did have in our history and focus on what we did right, instead of the endless focus of what we did wrong. It is too difficult to see what we'll do wrong in foresight, but if we can at least focus on the underlying principles that lead to success then maybe we can increase our odds of determining where our intervention would at least have a decent chance of making the situation better.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/comme...#axzz2qBUvtx1q
Bold print is mine for emphasisThe truth is something few people in the national security establishment are willing to confront: Confusing capability with utility, the United States knows how to start wars but has seemingly forgotten how to conclude them. Yet concluding war on favorable terms — a concept formerly known as victory — is the object of the exercise. For the United States, victory has become a lost art. This unhappy verdict applies whether U.S. forces operate conventionally (employing high-tech "shock and awe" tactics) or unconventionally ("winning hearts and minds").
As a consequence, instead of promoting stability — perhaps the paramount U.S. interest not only in the Islamic world but also globally — Washington's penchant for armed intervention since the end of the Cold War, and especially since 9/11, has tended to encourage just the opposite. In effect, despite spilling much blood and expending vast amounts of treasure, U.S. military exertions have played into the hands of our adversaries, misleadingly lumped together under the rubric of "terrorists."
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