They ignored the voices of caution, they used actions instead of words, they were Unilateral, and it worked.
Whether it worked or not depends on your assumed objective. Wars are fought to obtain political objectives; they are not won when the enemy force is destroyed, they are won when the objective is attained. If the objective was simply to remove Saddam, then we won. If the objective was to eliminate terrorism, roll back the influence of Islamic radicalism, and spread democracy in the Middle East, we have quite a bit more to do.
Meanwhile, we are entering a period during which we must be very careful indeed on the home front. We’ve all heard about the possibility that Iraqi WMD were moved to Syria. If they could get to Syria, we have to assume that they can and have reached Al Qaeda or other similar groups as well. We will be tempted to let our guard down; that’s only natural after winning a battle. The people in charge of homeland security have to remember that the war is still going on. Our most dangerous enemies have more support than ever in their own world, and its now very likely that they have chemical and/or biological weapons as well.
This is going to end badly. Everything seems wonderful now, just like everything looked great for the French around 1809.
We all know what pride goeth before. The danger, of course, is that they will want to keep biting off pieces until they reach one they can’t swallow.
As always, we’ll see. |
