Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
I don't see that disproportionate response carries much deterrent force if it isn't applied to those who did whatever it is we are responding to.
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. 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. We were going to topple and leave.
The message we communicate is that you can attack the US and get away with it, and benefit from it, because the response is going to be applied to somebody else, leaving you with a propaganda bonanza.
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 (June 2002). I'd also submit that propaganda bonanzas are fleeting.

news cycles and all that...
I think the people who attacked us did get what they needed, and far more of it than they expected. Fortunately for us, they were unable to exploit the opportunity we gave them to the fullest possible extent. It's useful to have incompetent enemies, but it's not something we want to rely on.
In reverse order; we have been benefiting from that incompetence since 1775 but I agree it's not a good idea to rely on it. The fact that they were unable to fully exploit the situation is not totally their responsibility; we aided by striking where we did and by several other actions -- and, most of all, by the hard work of an Army that went in unprepared but turned it around the hard way. We can disagree that they achieved all their aims; they didn't and we didn't. Wars are like that.
Our strategic weakness lies in long-term political will.
I agree in general. There are occasional exceptions.
Our vulnerability is the war of attrition. This is no secret: we know it, our allies know it, our enemies know it.
I think there are several misperceptions there but acknowledge they are the common wisdom. 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...
They can't defeat us, but if they can maneuver us into the right position, they might be able to outlast us and achieve the same effect. We know they will try to maneuver us into long-term static occupation of Muslim nations: that's where they want us to be.
I think they are beginning to discover that wasn't quite as smart as you think and they thought.
It is in our interest not to permit them to place us in this position. Seems to me we haven't exactly achieved that.
I agree with the first thought, obviously the second is true but I think it's a bit more complex than that. Why did we stay in both Iraq and Afghanistan; the plan in each was to topple and leave. What changed that? I believe it was a different cause for each nation but both changes hit at about the same time, May of 2003...