“In my opinion, Iraq was morsch even before the USA went there. In much the same way as the KuK monarchy was morsch before WW1. I see no exit that leads to a stable Iraq, as it was before. I think in the long term Iran will profit from this. “
If we succeed and Iraq remains a viable nation after we leave, it will be a complete success, even if bombs go off here and there, which will of course be the new argument for failure by the MSM at that point. A republic of Iraq will be a real problem for Iran. Iran is internally not as stable, peaceful, and unified as most think. Like the Cold War where West Germany was a powerful and damaging influence for the DDR, Iraq will affect Iran. Iraq as it struggles to survive will expend resources fighting the same bad guys we are. They will essentially do some of the work for us and we have to expend less. The war in Iraq has created a giant $hit magnet in the Middle East, and while the self proclaimed intellectual will use this as some argument of failure, it’s actually exactly what you want. It takes the fight to them, and out of the streets of NY, London, Madrid...... Hell, Coalition forces have actually captured and killed European Islamists, as in Muslims with a passport from a European nation that traveled to Iraq to fight or blow something up. It’s a fight that is more on “our terms.” An Islamist caught in Iraq fighting us does not fall under US or some European countries laws, we can operate using tools and techniques that would be forbidden elsewhere. It’s a sandbox, where we set up a big meat-grinder, and they keep coming, and that’s OK.
Iraq is a great location, it’s the “highground” from where we want to fight. There’s the holy shrines at Karbala where Mohamed’s sons are buried (Helps make blue light to attract the $hit flies into the zapper: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26296-2004May14.html That was the unit I was in), and it’s located between our friends Syria AND Iran. We would be “Insane” to give up this place, but as you rightfully and probably know, Obama is political enough to do just that. Do you really think Iran isn’t expending its resources in fighting us and Iraqi’s in Iraq? Do you really think we’re not pushing back on them? Do you really think we didn’t expect Iran to be a player in this even before we went in? Do you think we’re going to advertise everything we’re doing?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4180087.stm
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/us__israel_operate_in_iran.html
Who do we have to answer too when launching a U2 in Iraq? If Iran fires anything heading Westward, where will it fly over or across? If we want to put several divisions on the boarder to Iran, who other than ourselves will question this? I could be wrong, but I think it’s a pretty permissive environment for the military and intelligence organizations to operate from.
This is a war, a concept the Germans still deny. It is fought on many levels: militarily, politically, economically, with intelligence, in the media………. Iran is one of the bad players and they’re in the mix, but don’t think all is lost with Iraq, or that we even got bogged down and are stuck with no way out (The opinion you have). Maybe we like the place, and maybe many in the security and defense establishment would like to stick around for a while because we’re so close to our friends the Syrians and Iranians, and are finding a lot of nice AQ, Ansar al-Islam, etc types there that we’d like to talk to a bit. We even have Iranian “guests” who we hold onto for a while: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/25/africa/web.1225iraq.php
Just realize while you buy the media horse $hit of doom and gloom, last year in Germany you had 2347 murders, we took 900 (for all reasons, 1/3 being NONcombat related and 2007 was the worst year) casualties in Iraq. Actual combat casualties was about 600, and that was “the worst” year. As a soldier and a motorcycle owner, I was more likely to die on the road with my motorbike, than in Iraq, but that’s not a “shocking doom” story, right? Just some weird statistic for you, LOL. But I would be the first to admit that casualties are no metric of success. As politically incorrect this sounds, the casualty only has a political value and is a metric politician’s worry about because they talk in terms of feelings and emotions, and worry about pictures etc. Often such as in 2007 when our casualties were highest of any year, we were actually setting the stage for the success we enjoy today. The surge, which pushed hard, brought results, but also casualties. An Army bunkered up on a FOB and doing nothing might not suffer any casualties, but they’re not accomplishing much either. It’s a paradox that a military finds itself in, since achieving results almost always increases the exposure to risk factors and inevitably brings more casualties even in peacekeeping or humanitarian missions. It’s that simple, if you want to accomplish something, the risk goes up.
http://www.bka.de/pks/pks2007/index.html
What will likely happen if Obama gets elected and Iraq declines? We will probably resort to a divided Iraq, where those easy to maintain and hold areas will remain and continue to have some US presence, though more in the background. It would still not be a complete failure, but it would definitely not be the overwhelming success we want to achieve.
—
While your people still smirk about the invasion of Poland and dream about what a great success that was, we invaded a country that knew we were coming (No surprise attack like Poland), they had years to prepare, they knew us fairly well and how we operate, we had to deal with temperatures that go up to 122F (50C) in the shade! Dust storms and sand, open terrain that allows us to be fired upon at long ranges (Little cover and concealment), limited roads that can support our advancement, cities the size of Baghdad with 5.6 million (bigger than Warsaw) inhabitants, in a country larger than Poland by nearly 1/3, and our national industrial base and senior leaders were on the other side of the PLANET (Think logistics and communications)! Now we did this in 21 days, or three weeks, Germany took nearly six weeks, and suffered 16,343 KIA (About 40 TIMES our casualties), but you’d consider the invasion of Poland a complete success. Please fact-check me. LOL
What we pulled off in Iraq, is without precedent. Never, has a country attacked another country this size, fighting in larger cities, with so few casualties and so quickly. It’s never been done. And that was “failure.”
How does one create the illusion of failure? You have Der Spiegel write about how we are “bogged down.” Stories about how we are running out of batteries. How we are running out of food. How we are running out of fuel. How casualties are mounting, the bloodiest battle will soon start, Baghdad…………. Before long, someone with no perspective, no understanding or context, would have to believe that it’s all over for us! It would be the reasonable thing to believe! But things moved forward quiet well, as they are now.
Also, I know that the operation in Iraq was a tremendous success for the USA, and I'm certain it was very well executed. But the whole fight was like putting Mike Tyson against a 4 year old and now you tell me: "That babe had a mean left hook."