In the case of Iraq:
1. Relatively flat terrain with easy surveillance.
2. A no fly zone with sea-launched missiles to shoot offenders down.
3. A continuation of the struggle between Sunnis (Syria) and Shias (Iran) making everything else a footnote.
4. A land locked country with nowhere to go.
5. Who cares if they fight and kill each other?
6. No reason for Al Qaeda to be there because there are no infidels to kill.
7. Chaos that ensures no sophisticated organization to threaten us.
Of course, we're there now and it is all too late for this. But I read military history and I don't know a General alive today who would have put soldiers into Iraq to catch bullets -- unless that General was under direct orders to do so by the Commander in Chief.
I will say it again. We DID win the war in Iraq years and years ago.
The terrorists were elsewhere at the time.
And then we decided to stick around.
Now, we urgently need 200,000 additional troops, at the very least, to police every single square inch of Iraq -- and protect each other. Our enemies are invisible until they attack us. Ever see that movie Predator? That's what its like for an American soldier to fight a guerrilla war. It sucks.
1. Relatively flat terrain with easy surveillance.
Do you have any clue how BIG the area is you are proposing surveillance on? With what assets do you think that job could be done? And what exactly would surveillance do about a few Iranian divisions pouring across the border?
2. A no fly zone with sea-launched missiles to shoot offenders down.
And where, with the continuing resistance to basing troops in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey are you going to base this "No Fly" force, and what makes you think it would be any more successful than the failed effort against Saddam? Unless you are willing to commit the US to a seaborne invasion of Iran, they can interdict the Persian Gulf at will. If they should invade, by land, an Iraq in collapse, how would the US stop it?
3. A continuation of the struggle between Sunnis (Syria) and Shias (Iran) making everything else a footnote.
Currently, the Syrians and Iranians are co-operating to destabilize Iraq. Given that it is one of the few fertile area in the ME, why wouldn't they co-operate to partition it up? Not to mention that Turkey would love to rid itself of the Kurds.
4. A land locked country with nowhere to go.
Nowhere but Turkey, Jordan, Israel, the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil fields. Yet, you advocate using sea-based force to monitor and interdict from. It is also the historical controlling area of the region, with the most desireable terrain.
5. Who cares if they fight and kill each other?
Anybody who wants to eliminate terrorist hiding places, breeding grounds for fanatics, threats to world energy supply, and the chance that the Islamacist regimes of the area may expand and secure their flanks.
6. No reason for Al Qaeda to be there because there are no infidels to kill.
They were there before. And in Afghanistan before. And in Somalia before and returned after we left. And in Sudan, which has been hands off. And in the Philippines, which we treat as a friendly nation. Why would they leave, if the US was so stupid as to create the sort of "strongman" environmental chaos that they thrive in, and then abandon the field to them?
7. Chaos that ensures no sophisticated organization to threaten us.
It didn't insure it in post-Soviet Afghanistan, nor does a group need to be "sophisticated" to launch terror attacks.