Monday, June 16, 2014

The Lesson of Iraq

You want a lesson of Iraq? Here's one: Don't go invading countries about which you don't know enough to know what you want to do once you get there.

Ready for another? OK, here: Don't destroy a power without considering what will fill the ensuing vacuum. . . .

I think we will continue to be surprised and chagrined for many years to come by how Iraq plays out. Ryan Crocker, then the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said to me in 2008 that the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered hadn't yet happened. I think we may be seeing the beginning of those events now. But everything in Iraq takes longer than expected, so it may be a decade or even more before we know what really has happened.

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