OT politics
Bush Jr's dad was the Director of Central Intelligence for a while, and wasn't a complete bastard. Bush Jr. must have assumed the jobs were similar. Naïve, perhaps, but that's something I've thought of him since he expected to create democracy by force where none existed, in the middle of a hotbed of sectarian violence stretching back centuries.
Bush's plan on Iraq was a terrific success for about ten days into the invasion, when the military victory was complete and the government he planned to ouster was gone. Thereafter, it was absolutely clear that (a) the Army hadn't war-gamed further activities and (b) there was no pre-arranged post-victory plan (e.g., a second clearly-defined objective). Had I been in charge, the first thing I'd have done would be to have conducted a voter registration drive (and pass out hard-to-forge civilian IDs for use at polling places) and passed out books explaining how elections would work, how voting apparatus would work, and how locals would be selected to oversee balloting. The book would be full of diagrams showing what people would expect to see in nine months. I'd start building polling stations and registering voters. Instead, we got months of seemingly planless patrol activity that played into the propaganda that the US was there for oil (if we wanted the oil, we'd have written a check, duh).
It's not fair to say the US lost the peace, because the US never had any peace. The US achieved the victory condition for which the Army had gamed (the fall of Bagdad), and thereafter the Army had no military objective. The Army isn't a police force, and the Marines so much less so.
We can debate whether entering Iraq made sense from a military or political or humanitarian or other standpoint, but I think that as executed it was a rousing success until the practiced victory condition was achieved then it was unwinnable for the simple reason that no military objective was set forth to achieve. "Stand there until I tell you you're good to leave" isn't really a military objective, is it? And, what else have they got? If there is no identifiable victory condition, there can be no victory. QED.
The US seems to suck at the propaganda war. This is a competency we will need to develop if we're to capitalize on foreign-soil military victories in the future.
Take care,
--Tex.
