We were able to invade despite what the rest of the world thought, and am certain we could have kept the pressure on with more inspections, diplomatic jawboning, etc, despite the obvious corruption these long term programs entail
Just to be obvious about it, we were able to invade with few allies, but no one can keep up a sanctions regime that the rest of the developed world is happy to flout. The upshot was that we kept up the no-fly zones and got all the blame for the children Saddam killed under the sanctions, while Saddam passed out the Oil-for-Food chits, and lobbied for the end of sanctions, to good effect.
The important question is whether Iraq turns out a stable country, not run by AQ or ruled from Iran. That will be hard to tell; there will be bombs going off for a while yet. But I get the feeling that the Shia and the Kurds don't intend to be sheep for the slaughter again. If it turns out okay, even just semi-decent, then the costs and mistakes of getting there will be forgiven by history. That includes the economic costs, imo.
It's almost always wrong to focus on whether you can afford a war or not, because the answer is almost always 'no'. It's a question of what you're fighting for. We are fighting to start connecting a piece of the Middle East Gap to the Core, in Barnett's terms, because democracy with markets is really the only answer we have to Islamism. And we must answer Islamism or just wait for the next 9/11. |
