>raq was the counterweight to Iran in the region and not a direct threat to the US. Afghanistan and Pakistan were the sanctuaries for Al Queda, not Iraq.
No, he did not.
Invading Iraq and replacing Hussein was perfect strategy.
Afghanistan is tactics. Simply tactics that admittedly had to be employed to neuter AQ.
We have no strategic interest in that area.
We do have a HUGE strategic interest in Iraq and the surrounding areas.
We now have a regime that is not hostile to the best interests of America, a fledgling democratic process going on in a mid east country, and a large military presence right in the midst of sensitive region that is a more modern system than is the norm for Arabs, and that presence will remain there for a very, very long time because it is now in the interests of both countries that it remain so.
That is strategy.
Killing a few thousand ragheads - which is all that we have done in Asia, pushing the remainder into other hostile backward countries, and then having to occupy that remote mountainousness backward illiterate country is not strategic vision.
It is tactics that have no lasting value after we leave.
AQ is not the threat that an unleashed Saddam was.
Israel knew it and so did we.
Have always thought with Saddam it was, as usual, a case of follow the money. That many Americans must have had a lot invested in him and the old Iraq given some of the vehement opposition to taking him down. Or, maybe they wanted to see Israel destroyed. One or the other I think.
I beg to disagree. Al Queada attacked the United States and under the Constitution it was the duty of the Commander in Chief, with the assent of Congress, to find and eliminate the attackers in order to defend the homeland. Iraq did not attack the United States and represented no threat to the homeland.
We have become an imperialist nation selectively intervening militarily in undeclared wars where our imperial President defines a “strategic interest”. Note the word “selectively”. It could be argued we have or had a strategic interest in eliminating the communist state 90 miles off the Florida coast but we did not invade Cuba. We also did not invade Venezuela which poses more of a strategic threat than Iraq. We also did not invade Iran which had taken direct action against US citizens.
The Constitution does not provide for the President to invade countries at will because he defines a “strategic interest” or wants to establish a democratic government. If George Bush had followed the Constitution and asked for an actual declaration of war from Congress for the purpose of regime change it would have likely been voted down. The skirting of the Constitutional requirement by Truman (Korea), Johnson (Vietnam), Reagan (Grenada), Bush I (Iraq), Clinton (Kosovo), Bush II (Iraq and Afghanistan), Obama (Libya) has resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of US lives as well as the draining of our national treasury. Obama is thumbing his nose at Congress today over Libya because his predecessors got away with violating their oaths of office and not getting the declaration of war before committing troops to combat.
I’m a strict constructionist when it comes to interpreting the Constitution and the document is very clear with respect to going to war. If one has any doubts about the meaning, read the Federalist Papers or the transcripts of the debates at the ratifying convention. It was never contemplated the chief executive would have the power to engage in multi year wars based on his definition of “strategic interest” without obtaining the consent of Congress.