Quote:
Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute
I agree that it most likely will take a long time. Nothing worth doing is easy - never has been, never will be. Which leads to my real question "Wouldn't it be worth the effort to rid the world of terrorists, or to at least let them know that any of their activity will not be tolerated?"
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I think it would be worth the effort to rid the world of terrorists. But that will never fully happen. To me, it is about allocation of scarce resources, money, manpower, and interdiction against terrorism. If we devote all of our resources for such a long time to the building of Iraq, what are we unable to do elsewhere? Look at what the lack of focus on Afghanistan has done to the effort there. The situation has regressed steadily there since the Iraq war began. Then look at Iran, even if we wanted to there would be nothing that we could militarily to address that threat, other than bomb them, so they effectively no that invasion is off the table, for the forseeable future.
Finally, I am with you in saying that the best solution, in a perfect world, would be a multi-decade heavy presence in Iraq that would help turn into a functioning democracy. But the world is no perfect, and I KNOW that the political will necessary is not there to do what is in the super-long term interest of the United States. We also may not be able to afford it.