>No. Iraq is fractured into halves. The northern half is controlled by ISIS, the southern by a dysfunction democracy where the elections are not about ideas and policies, but rather about Sunnis vs Shiites.
All true, but the discussion here is around the effectiveness of the U.S. military and you are referring to the political failure to build a strong enough post-US occupation Iraq.
> Afghanistan is also sectarian. Neither are anything we'd recognize as free and stable democracies.
I don't think the expectation of western-style democracies coming into existence is reasonable in that part of the world. We can all wish for it... But that doesn't mean the U.S. military (pre-whithdrawl) wasn't effective in effecting regime change and maintaining control.
>Our wars there were brutal, protracted, expensive, and ultimately didn't work.
brutal, protracted, expensive- yes, yes, yes
ultimately didn't work- sure, but I would argue that was not a military failure and this discussion is about the military performance.
A better article would have been "The US sucks at post-WWII nation building"...
> brutal, protracted, expensive- yes, yes, yes ultimately didn't work- sure, but I would argue that was not a military failure and this discussion is about the military performance.
The generals are the link. They must translate political objectives into military action that delivers them. The US probably has the best fighting force, but it lacks leadership and focus. The whole Iraq and Afgani adventures look to me like the bridge in Apocalypse Now.
>All true, but the discussion here is around the effectiveness of the US military
Yes, but you're the one who brought in the factor of achieving political goals. The US most certainly did not achieve it's political goals in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Neither country is an especially friendly or reliable ally. If anything, we've set back our political goals in both regions by decades. The fact that it was civilian incompetence rather than military blundering which caused the US to squander those goals irrelevant to the question. The question is, "Did the US achieve its political goals in Iraq and Afghanistan?" The answer to that question is a pretty clear, "No," in both cases. Of course we can argue about why the answer is "No" and whose fault that is, but it's difficult to argue that the US and its allies accomplished any of their goals in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
All true, but the discussion here is around the effectiveness of the U.S. military and you are referring to the political failure to build a strong enough post-US occupation Iraq.
> Afghanistan is also sectarian. Neither are anything we'd recognize as free and stable democracies.
I don't think the expectation of western-style democracies coming into existence is reasonable in that part of the world. We can all wish for it... But that doesn't mean the U.S. military (pre-whithdrawl) wasn't effective in effecting regime change and maintaining control.
>Our wars there were brutal, protracted, expensive, and ultimately didn't work.
brutal, protracted, expensive- yes, yes, yes ultimately didn't work- sure, but I would argue that was not a military failure and this discussion is about the military performance.
A better article would have been "The US sucks at post-WWII nation building"...