(03-01-2026, 09:44 PM)Ninurta Wrote: I believe the blunder made in Iraq (other than the initial blunder of starting a war on an unnecessary front to begin with) was sending in "occupation" forces after the initial flush of victory. I think thy would have been in a much better place had they not sent in those occupation forces, but instead left Iraq to the Iraqis and just moved on to more important matters..
I don't think there was a choice not to occupy Iraq following the downfall of Saddam , you can't just walk away from something like that handing them their Freedom fries saying "Ok now you fix it" , the mistake as I see it , other than the Iraq invasion , was Rumsfeld's hare-brained idea of using a relatively small force rather than properly occupy Iraq.
Trump is repeating the same mistakes of the past thinking you can just pop in and break stuff then walk away , now it seems he's not ruling out boots on the ground and the likelihood is there will have to be , it's likely you will have a achieved what Israel wanted but be left holding the baby.
America first seems a distant memory , Shah of Iran 2.0 ?