ISIS

[Dill]

(11-11-2016, 12:26 PM)fredtoast Wrote: In my opinion if we had continued to occupy Iraq we would have spend hundreds of billions more and suffered tens of thousands more casualties.  It would have been throwing money and the lives of soldiers down a bottomless pit.  We can't afford to "fix" problems by taking over countries and occupying them.

Yes, possibly another 4,000 dead and another trillion spent.  The only advantage in our having stayed would be that ISIS would not have taken Fallujah or Mosul.  But likely it still would have formed in Syria  and spread to AFrica and urged lone wolf attacks in the U.S.   Bush should have listened to the foreign policy experts and not invaded.

Still, even after the invasion, there was a chance to set things right if there had been a plan. Keep most of the government, civil service, and army intact. Enforce security in Baghdad and Basra, rather than letting mobs loot and ethnic violence begin. Insisting that Iraqi oil remain under Iraqi control, its revenues to be shared by a common government, etc.

Regime change without nation-building will ALWAYS result in a disaster, but that is never the only option.