Quote Originally Posted by BRUZ_LEE View Post
It is dead wrong to show up with these type of military protectorats (IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN) in the first place, no matter what the quality of the generals...

If you don't have a recognized gvnmt in place it was always a bad idea to impose one from the outside, because it's exactly this perception of LEGITIMACY that makes up the Center of Gravity against the cause the insurgents will sell. And if you look at the set-up in IRAQ (it's not hard for jihadists to sell that as an US occupation to the people) you will be able to see very quickly that this ain't gonna work.

I personally think that a kind of dictatorship/monarchy wasn't so bad a type of government for IRAQ. "Democracy" surely isn't working down there...(nor will it work in Afghanistan)
Wonder why the CIA (what do they get paid for?) couldn't simply show up with a clever "coup" instead of that OIF ...

BRUZ
Actually, there were multiple attempts to engineer a coup in Iraq throughout the 1990s. See Ken Pollack's The Threatening Storm.