The Soviets were nothing as a threat compared to islam.
Second, just because I don't want to waste resources in Iraq doesn't mean, at all, that I'm suggesting we give up. Read my other posts.
Wars are won by will and money. Both are finite resources. We are stuck in Iraq - we cannot pull out now. But it is a total waste of treasure.
The West isn't going to start killing millions of muslims so that is out as a realistic option. The only way out of this that I can see, and I may be biased because of my background, is to:
1. Covertly attack the religion itself. Reagen was superb at this. Get them to fight each other and drain their resources. Discredit the religion, especially in the 3rd world.
2. Get away from oil dependency. The accumulated treasure of the West is flowing into the ME. We are funding our own destruction.
3. When it can be “publicly” justified, blow the hell out of an islamic nation every once in a while. Just don't hang around with the naive idea that you are going to engage in nation building.
Iraq is part of a chess game that involves Iran, Syria, a larger GWOT, and of course Iraq itself. You have to look at Iraq in the macro and from a systems sense, not from the petty and micro perspective which the anti-war pundit does. The layperson does not look past the horizon, and when we began massive investments already in 2000 for missile defense, many questioned this too. In 20 years when Iraq pays dividends few of the pundits who like those in the Cold War hung on the fences of our military installations in Germany screaming “Rather red than dead,” will remember their words.
Iraq is an opportunity and an investment, not a liability. We planted our flag in the middle of the Islamic world, with the shrines of Mohammed in Karbala. Like a bug zapper, Iraq is a giant magnet attracting all the vermin we want to kill. We built the meat grinder we want. That’s how you take the fight to the enemy!
Iraq weakened by eight years of war with Iran, Desert Storm, and 12 years embargo was a great opportunity. We have a long standing relationship with the Kurds post Desert Storm and they played a valuable role in taking down Iraq as well. We had cause to go after Iraq, and after 911 things changed. Iraq has a people that at least historically more world open and with a more educated populace (Comparatively in that region), so they might be more receptive to democracy. Imagine what a successful Iraq long term means for Iran? As Iraq comes on line, they expend their resources doing our bidding just to survive as a republic and democracy. They essentially expend their people and money to fight our common enemies and threats, such as the insurgents and Iran.
In the game of polemics things get turned on their head. Success is turned to failure; the reasons for the war are turned against it……. No, our reasons for war were good, the execution is good, and Iraq has every possibility of a positive outcome. The threats in the GWOT and to Iraq are by those in the West and US, who don’t see the threat at all. The threat is from within, by our media, the political process and opposition politics, etc. They can’t stop us from winning, we have to convince ourselves to quit, and that’s how we loose.