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Originally Posted by MikeWaters
In fact, talk of "winning" the fight against the insurgency has completely been abandoned. At this point, I don't know that we even have a definition of a win. Lack of civil war and many years until development of a WOMD is a win perhaps.
We have completely underestimated the difficulty of nation building. Of rolling back millenia of hate, bloodshed, and tradition. How did we become so arrogant? Perhaps is to our credit that we are so foolhardy, so naive, so willing to take on this Quixotic task of reshaping the world with our swords.
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Bush (senior) caught a lot of flack from people when he did not topple Saddam back in GWI. Now with the aid of a "retrospectascope" we see that daddy was quite a bit smarter than junior and are observing first hand what would have happened back then had we done so. Senior had a lot more foresight than junior and knew the ramifications and that even with a large NATO coalition and a ton of US troops already in the area they didn't have the necessary tools to rebuild a nation of psychotic muslims.
Our analysis was wrong from the conception of the term WMD. The only reason why we have seen some success (if one can call it that) is b/c of the individuals over there.
It is sad to see the tolls of this war, and believe me it is and will be a high price to pay for decades to come. Politically it has left us with no international credibility, or even credibility with the people here in the US. Especially now that there is a real threat looming with Iran. Had Saddam had nukes, and stock piles of chemical weapons, it would have been worth it. Now, Bush looks like an idiot trying to cover his tracks.