How the Iraq War Crippled U.S. Military Power
How the Iraq War Crippled U.S. Military Power by Nathan Freier, Defense One
… The decline of American military influence actually began with 9/11 and the reflexive response to a growing threat the U.S. government never completely understood. It was exacerbated by the impetuous decision to go to war against Iraq in March 2003. Eleven years on, this course will be difficult to reverse. Iraq’s greatest risk, after all, was always less about whether or not we’d successfully destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime and much more about the future implications of choosing to fight in Iraq in the first place. From the very beginning, there was a real chance that great cost, misfortune or — worse — failure in Iraq would deter decisive U.S. leadership at a future time and place of much greater need.
Welcome to that future. The United States is now reaping by the bushel what it painfully sowed in Iraq. To begin with, the adverse impact of a terminally destabilized Iraq in the world’s most combustible region is obvious, even to the casual observer. For all of our effort, we also got a much more emboldened Iran. Unfortunately, that’s just the prologue…
