A parallel—and more quixotic—argument revolved around the theory that once Saddam was overthrown our presence would spark some kind of liberal transformation in the Middle East. That too turned out to be false – with devastating consequences. And it had little to do with our military execution.
Our failure was political: the Bush administration (and many others) overestimated the appetite of people in the region to embrace secular institutions and freedoms. Consequently, many more Americans died trying to create a stable Iraq than did fighting for the safety of Americans. The United States sacrificed those lives, not as detractors claim, for oil or empire, but for moral reasons. Yet, in the end, the Iraqi people failed because of their own historical, religious and cultural problems.
So even if we judge the Iraq invasion using the criterions given to us by those who advocated for it, the war was a failure.
But even if we set aside that failure, is there any honest observer of the Middle East who believes it’s more stable today than it was in 2002? A more stable Middle East doesn’t necessarily mean more a moral one, that’s true, but even with Hussein in the ground there’s little evidence Americans are any less in danger from a rogue ISIS style terror attack than they were from Iraqi Baathists. The regime-change was supposed to produce security not another kind of insecurity.
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