Trump’s Mistake: The Tragic Tale of America’s Unwillingness to End Its Disastrous War Abroad, nationalinterest.org

Daniel L. Davis, analyst on national security and foreign policy

Every American should be asking their elected leaders why, for nearly two decades, they refused to do the right thing and end the war.

This Friday marks the anniversary of George Bush’s ill-advised and ill-fated “shock and awe” war of 2003. That campaign, Bush sternly told the American people, was to “disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” The reality, however, has been almost the opposite: seventeen-years-and-counting of a war that has thus far cost America thousands of troops killed, tens of thousands wounded, and hundreds of thousands who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries.

The disturbing truth, as is now well known, is that the egregious price in blood and treasure this war has imposed upon our Armed Forces–and continues to impose–was not necessary in 2003 to keep us safe, and has in fact made Americans less safe in the intervening seventeen years. For the good of our country and for the preservation of our service members, all troops should be expeditiously withdrawn from Iraq. […]

Once again, Iraqi politicians are seeking to force our military out of their country and Shia militias reiterate their vow to continue trying to kill our troops. As long as we maintain a military footprint in Iraq, this perpetual cycle of violence against our troops and political dysfunction in Baghdad will never end because it cannot be resolved by military power.

The only course of action that makes any sense now is to get our troops out of Iraq and continue protecting our homeland via our unparalleled ability to project power globally against any direct threat to our country. Iraq’s internal disputes are not our concern. We should make sure that the seventeenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq is the last one observed with U.S. troops in the country. Läs artikel