Reflections on the War in Iraq

[Marauder06]

I think we probably thought Iraq would be easier than Iran. On the west, Iraq borders a friendly(ish) country and the countries to the north have their own problems. Iraq was also fractious (Sunnis, Shias, Kurds) in a way that Iran didn't seem to be (or at least less so, as shown by their performance in the Iran/Iraq war). Their people were more religiously motivated and more willing to fight than the Iraqis. We probably also hoped that we'd do Iraq first, democratic peace would break out, and we'd have that land mass (and all of its oil) to use against Iran later on.

And perhaps more importantly, it was a whole lot easier to trump up a war against Iraq than it was/is against Iran.

 

[AWP]

I agree with the above, but I'll add a fourth point...F-14 vs. F-14. Who wouldn't want that to happen?

 

[Cookie_]

Or...we could have just stayed home instead of inventing a war out of thin air. That wouldn't be so bad, would it?

Defense companies hearing you say this:

 

[Gunz]

I think we probably thought Iraq would be easier than Iran. On the west, Iraq borders a friendly(ish) country and the countries to the north have their own problems. Iraq was also fractious (Sunnis, Shias, Kurds) in a way that Iran didn't seem to be (or at least less so, as shown by their performance in the Iran/Iraq war). Their people were more religiously motivated and more willing to fight than the Iraqis. We probably also hoped that we'd do Iraq first, democratic peace would break out, and we'd have that land mass (and all of its oil) to use against Iran later on.

And perhaps more importantly, it was a whole lot easier to trump up a war against Iraq than it was/is against Iran.

I also think Bush and Tony Blair, still very much riding the post 9/11 emotional wave, envisioned a democratic Iraq--or at least an Iraq with a friendly and welcoming regime to US/UK assets. This perhaps might include permanent military bases from which to wage the GWOT. And another ally besides Israel in the heart of the Middle East. I believe they also felt Iraq could be a magnet for foreign terrorists eager to close with American forces, in essence a country-wide terrorist kill zone.

 

[Marauder06]

I also think Bush and Tony Blair, still very much riding the post 9/11 emotional wave, envisioned a democratic Iraq--or at least an Iraq with a friendly and welcoming regime to US/UK assets. This perhaps might include permanent military bases from which to wage the GWOT. And another ally besides Israel in the heart of the Middle East. I believe they also felt Iraq could be a magnet for foreign terrorists eager to close with American forces, in essence a country-wide terrorist kill zone.

I thought about that also--a giant jihadist bug zapper to draw in anyone who wanted a piece of The Great Satan.

But we already had that, in Afghanistan. Anyone who was super-motivated would find a way there. In Iraq, we fought a lot of foreign fighters but mostly against people who wanted jobs, security, and oh yeah foreign invaders out of their country. Folks who probably wouldn't have tried to get their jihad on if America had stayed out of their country.

 

[Gunz]

I thought about that also--a giant jihadist bug zapper to draw in anyone who wanted a piece of The Great Satan.

But we already had that, in Afghanistan.

That’s true, sir.

BTW, Bravo Zulu for “Jihadist bug zapper.”

 

[BloodStripe]

I did a few months working on a project with the HASC and before I went to the Hill, I attended a class at Georgetown. One of the first speakers referenced that when the US establishes a new Government somewhere we never mimic what we have in the US. I don’t have my notes in front of me so I’m working off a few years ago memory, but we almost exclusively use a parliamentary system. This is due to several factors but the most prominent reason being that a fragile Government will likely collapse due to nothing getting accomplished (see Republicans vs Democrats).

 

[BlackSmokeRisinG]

My thoughts on Iraq were simplistic, and it helped me stay positive all these years. I just left for maybe the last time a few months ago, and while they definitely still have their problems, Iraq is much better now and we don't have Saddam around.

I wasn't even 10 when Desert Storm happened. I was listening to my step-dad and uncle talk. My uncle was trying to join but had some surgery that was keeping him out. My step-dad who was never in the military and knew nothing about anything said the war was going to go on and my kids were going to have to go fight there. He was basically taking Saddam's jihad threats seriously. 23 years later I was walking around Baghdad and thought it was destiny. I never bought into the war for oil or that Saddam turned over a new leaf and would never attack anyone again or support terrorism.

In retrospect it was just a war we didn't have to fight that cost a ton of money and got a lot of people killed. Even if Saddam went full AQ I doubt they would have ever accomplished much outside of giving us a reason to keep up the air strikes.

 

[Marauder06]

Here's the "reflections on Iraq" piece I ended up co-authoring with my best friend, who given the fact that he was an Army Nurse, has a slightly different perspective than I did about our respective experiences there. It wasn't the "blame everything on Democratic Peace Theory" article that I initially envisioned, but I think it's better.

And yes, there are Dungeons and Dragons references. ;)

On a side note, I used the MidJourney AI to generate some of the art (see below).

“We really messed this country up. Bad. So how did we get involved in the disastrous Iraq war in the first place”

“A Deck of Many Things": Reflections on Colin Powell and Iraq, 20 Years Later

 

[BloodStripe]

I think it’s time we reminded Iraq who their Daddy is. We killed a terrorist and they are “mad” about it. Really Iran is mad and making Iraq their puppet.

Iraq moving to remove US-led military coalition, prime minister says

 

[AWP]

I think it’s time we reminded Iraq who their Daddy is. We killed a terrorist and they are “mad” about it. Really Iran is mad and making Iraq their puppet.

Iraq moving to remove US-led military coalition, prime minister says

Back when retaking Mosul was a thing (2016?) the Iraqi "air force" flew a couple of aircraft over Mosul at like 10k feet or something. Of course, we can't bomb ISIS if "friendlies" are down there, so we pulled back and let the Iraqis do...whatever they did. A day or two later, they tried the same thing and we sent some fighters down to shoo them away so we could go back to killing ISIS and free an Iraqi city.

You'd have thought we gang raped every citizen under 10. The Iraqis went fucking NUTS over diplomatic channels. That's their country, their war, their city, who are we... blah, blah, blah.

Too easy. We pulled some folks back and when the Iraqis did their little flyover we also pulled our strike a/c. Their units are calling for CAS, but we're fresh out of JTACs and JDAMs. Artillery? Not available.

Those pricks finally wised up and stopped flying through our kill boxes, though they would still do it once in a blue moon to remind us of who owns that country. I wonder how many of their countrymen died over their little stunt.

Fuck the Iraqis. Bring everyone home and let ISIS destroy the country. Iraq wants to fuck around, Iraq can find out. Besides, we can use those operational funds to buy Zelensky another yacht or two.

 

[Marauder06]

I think it’s time we reminded Iraq who their Daddy is. We killed a terrorist and they are “mad” about it. Really Iran is mad and making Iraq their puppet.

Iraq moving to remove US-led military coalition, prime minister says

I feel like I've seen this movie before...

 

[Box]

They can all go respectfully fuck themselves - right in their stupid collective assholes.

The USA pours our precious blood and national treasure all over this planet and there are only two things that remain constant no matter how much blood is spilled, or how far we have to go to spill it...

1) The mother fuckers we die for are a bunch of ingrates that are only happy when a dictator has his fucking boot on their throats...
...and somehow its all our fault for having Modern Civilization 5.0 as our operating system while their backwards assed societies are still operating off of a bootlegged copy of First Millennium 1.0

2) The war profiteers elected to administer our system of governance don't give two shits about American blood because their children and loved ones are more often than not serving in the legal field bringing charges for war crimes or serving in the procurement field making sure we are well supplied with shit we didn't ask for...
...and our national treasure is just monopoly money to them because they all exist on a taxpayer funded expense account.



Just my two cents - I could be wrong.

 

[Gunz]

.

 

[ThunderHorse]

Interesting stuff here.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1777861254897344721

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0162243917727353

Pretty sure that's not what COIN was about guys, but glad the dudes who shouldn't be deep inland got to keep whacking dudes.

 

[Marauder06]

It's interesting that the author said that we didn't need to be doing raids in 2007. He must have been in a different part of Iraq than I was, or more accurately where the units I was supporting were. I remember it being... sporty.

 

[AWP]

No raids. In Iraq. In 2007.

I have never been to Iraq and I know the author makes Joy Behar look like Stephen Hawking minus the wheelchair and trips to Pedo Island.

 

[Devildoc]

2007, the op tempo was sleep for a few hours in the day, brief in the afternoon, kit up after dinner, chill for a couple hours, start raids. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

 

[Marauder06]

The author references Al Anbar and 2007.

Both Ramadi and Fallujah are in Al Anbar province. "OK but why does that matter?"

The Second Battle of Fallujah was the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War. Some 110 coalition forces were killed and some 600 wounded in the battle; some 3,000 insurgents were killed or captured. An unknown number of civilians, estimated to be in the thousands, were also killed. source

2007 was when we did the surge.

But yeah, we didn't need to do raids, in 2007, in what was arguably the most-restive province in Iraq.

I guess it's also a good thing that nothing was going on in Iraq in 2007.

 

[racing_kitty]

Fuck him.

In the face.

With a rusty pizza cutter. More than one, actually.

Mounted on a chainsaw.