Is the situation in Iraq now worth the American blood and treasure spent there?

There’s really no way to be sure.

The problem is that one thing led to another to another. We supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. (1980–1988). Iraq was our friend.

Until Saddam Hussein became our enemy.after he invaded Kuwait in 1990 – the US fought against him then. (and for Kuwait)

Then the US elected to attack Iraq after 9/11 even though Iraq hadn’t been the attacker – Al Qaeda and Afghanistan were. This was a war that was based on inaccurate intelligence had terrible planning.

So the US beat Iraq and the didn’t know what to do – US stupidity and lack of strategic planning led to the emergence of ISIS and the Islamic state. And thousands more needless deaths and billions of dollars spent.

All of this is a long way of saying that we- the US – screwed things up from the very beginning, and are paying for our stupidity 30 years later.

no. it has not been worth the American blood and treasure. The situation in Iraq is a testament of terrible American leadership from Reagan on forward.

This question has a strange framing. Was invading Iraq “worth” it? How can this “worth” be measured? By Raytheon’s profits? By investors’ wealth? We’re talking about the invasion of a country and ~500k dead people.

No, especially not considering all the impacts on so many things outside of Iraq as well.

No. As I’ve often said, it will go down in history as one of the worst foreign policy blunders the U.S. ever made.

The fact is we wanted a country to punish after 9/11. There was none because it was an international terrorist organization that defied traditional ideas of borders and nations. The old days of two enemy countries meeting on the battle front and exchanging fire were over, but we still had that old mindset. So we invaded Iraq just to invade someone (of course all the justifications given were faulty and had nothing to do with 9/11).

No. A 10 billion dollar investment to clone then install a Sadam replicant would have made for a comparatively STUPENDOUS bargain. @Demosthenes I screamed during the invasion all over Askville that it would be the single greatest strategic blunder in the history of the United States.

Well the weapon manufacturers think it was.

Still do!

@stanleybmanly It must have been a frustrating time. I was only 11 so I didn’t have a coherent opinion on it, but I can remember someone in my 6th grade class asking my teacher if she was going to attend an anti-war protest and she basically admitted she supported the invasion. And I do remember when Americans were considered unpatriotic for not supporting the war.

YES ! And not even 20 fkn years after the second worst strategic blunder in the history of this dazzlingly unbelievably myopic, intransigent, ignorant excuse for a country.

No, it has never been worth the blood and money.

This is Mosul today, Iraq’s second city.

No.