Editor’s note: The following is Danielle Pletka’s response to the New York Times Room for Debate question: Was Iraq a unique foreign policy disaster caused by bad information or is it a warning about aggressive military action that’s still being advocated?
Americans have developed a notional formula for immaculate military intervention: Someone else pays, there are almost no casualties, all the action is military (no nation building, please), and we’re out. This is the myth of the George H.W. Bush first Gulf war. Contrast that to the war that finally ousted Saddam Hussein, not to speak of the hapless NATO-led intervention in Libya, and there seems to be a lesson to learn here. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong lesson.
Notwithstanding years of disinvestment, the United States still has the world’s most formidable military. But contrary to the lessons of Gulf I, it’s not a stand-alone tool. Sure, we came, we went and status quo ante was restored. But like the disastrous peace of World War I that laid the groundwork for World War II, so too, our willingness to leave Saddam in place laid the groundwork for the next conflict.
Even what most Americans remember as the most successful military exercises, like World War II, had a military component that was followed by aggressive political and economic efforts to transform the former battle space. That’s the real lesson that too many have forgotten.
The American military’s job is to deter, and when that fails, to defeat an enemy, plain and simple. It can create the conditions for change, but it is not the one stop shop where we go to make the world a better place. That requires a strategy. And where we fail, it is because we have no post-military plan: Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. Understanding that fact, Obama’s death from the air approach to the Middle East appears doomed to failure.
Among the many disservices of the national, and often dishonest debate about the Iraq War, is that America should abandon its century-old tradition of being a global force for good. Rather than jettison US leadership, the right choice is to ensure that before we act, we have a president with a plan to achieve sustainable goals.
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