Iraq: A Post Mortem

I don't mind saying that I told you so about Iraq.  I studied history and terrorism in my military training as a Marine enough to know.  Terrorism prospers in areas of instability, and what did we do in Iraq?  We overthrew a stable, albeit tyrannical, regime that was secular in practice and kept the terror beat down.  Tariq Aziz was a Christian and was one of Hussein's key people.  Do you see anything like that in the Middle East?  Ever?  No.

You want to build a case against a tyrant?  Why don't we build a list of tyrants throughout the world?  We can be like a frog, jumping from lily pad to lily pad in search of the next conquest in order to free the world from tyranny one country at a time.  Be prepared to be disappointed though because there is no magic "government in a bottle" that you can pour out on the ruined country and convert it to a western and "civilized" way of life.

Our mentality has to change.  Reacting to clear and present threats to our national security is one thing, but those times are usually fairly evident to most people.  If large majorities of people oppose an action, there may just be justifiable cause for a pause.  Reducing Iraq to its present state served little purpose now that we have removed ourselves from their system.  Since we no longer prop it up, we gave Al Quaeda instant access with no authoritative regime to stamp it out, and we removed the natural opponent, and counterweight, of Iran and Syria.  In short, we shot ourselves in the foot.  Well. How does it feel?

Iraq arm of Al Qaeda says it was responsible for prison raids near Baghdad | Fox News