Come on, just because the people don't have a say in their governance, it does not mean it is not "their country." That is a dangerous bit of rationalization.
"We had to destroy the country to safe the country" Right? This is an easy trap to fall into, and we are better served by admitting that we did than we are by rationalizing away our most important lessons that we should be learning from this.
There is a WIDE range of options between "sit on the sidelines and do nothing" and "Invade and occupy."
One such option was the UW concept put on the table early to simply go in and leverage the Kurdish separatist movement. No one wanted one more SF-centric quick success though. We (DOD) were looking for a big gunfight that everyone could play in; and the Whitehouse was looking for an option that took out Saddam once and for all - and that is what we got. Now, what did we learn from that?
All the lessons learned I am seeing being captured are about how to do the wrong thing better. It is time we start putting a bit more wattage into thinking about how we could have done better things.
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