“Remind me, Why are we still there?”
In the narrow view, to create a friendly Iraqi state.
As in Korea, where the proximate objective was to preserve a friendly South Korean state.
In a larger view, to preserve a host of US allies, in the 1950’s, pretty much all of East Asia, here a slew of characters across the ME. A lot of these 1950’s allies were lousy allies and poor specimens, as are our present allies of the 2000’s, but even so.
In a much larger view, to keep a system of alliances and the general balance of power such that the world doesn’t collapse back into the situation of 1914 or 1939.
I was referring to the Kosovo affair in response to another poster, I should have phrased the question specifically to Kosovo, my mistake.
But thanks for the input. Unfortunately, conflict is unavoidable in the future in many of those same areas we have ‘pacified’ for so many years. Perhaps better we had done what MacArthur and Patton recommended, but hindsight is 20/20. ;-)