Outside of the realm of humanitarianism, RoE, whether the decisions made were justifiable, whether the Iraqi civilians were idiots, and what have you...
If I'm not mistaken, the goal of the invasion of Iraq (considering the lack of WMD's) was to set up a free, humane parliamentary democracy both on the behalf of the Iraqi people and for the sake of having a stable, pro-Western state in the Middle East to serve as an example for all... and for the sake of the interest that would serve the US, having an anti-extremist state in the Middle East.
In the current state, having high Iraqi confidence in its democratic government, enough to allow it to become powerful enough to function on its own and maintain security in Iraq, is essential to achieving achieving a level of security for the United States, while at the same time allowing for the toning down of the use of the American military for this purpose, because, like it or not, the American people get tired of war.
Since the current Iraqi regime was set up by Westerners, it's naturally going to be associated with us, for better or for worse.
Trying to completely exterminate extremism in Iraq & Afghanistan is silly... years and years later there's still extremism in Northern Ireland and Southeast Asia. The only practical way to achieve anything is to have the people of this region police themselves and drive their own people out, place trust in their governments, and trust in that what the Westerners have in mind for them is really the best option.
So it's not a war of killing the enemy... it's a war of public opinion. How many terrorists are killed is not so much what is important, it's who the average Iraqi perceives as being fighting for their interest... and the terrorists have home field advantage... it's naturally an up hill battle.
Now's a time of particular political turmoil with contested parliamentary elections in Iraq and the cluster#$@% that is President Karzai in Afghanistan. The people are undoubtedly, and not unjustifiably, becoming less trusting and more fed up with the governments that the west has set up, and perhaps even the democratic process itself.
The last thing that's going to make them say, 'hey maybe this is a good idea afterall, let's place more trust in power in these Western systems' is a bunch of their innocent countrymen being lit up by Americans. So really what's accomplished is nothing, unless you've got money to be made dealing arms to extremists...
Just a teenaged American's take on the situation...
Vietnam, Beriut, Mogadishu, etc...etc...etc...all proved that to be the correct way to proceed...when the enemy has no one to be accountable to for who they kill and how, there is only one way to beat them, and it isn't by being polite.
Forgive me if I'm wrong but... Vietnam is right now a Communist state, and Somalia is a failed one. It would hardly seem that the US strategy worked in those situations.
Unless the real goal of these conflicts was for American corporations have a cheap place to make cotton tee-shirts and overpriced sneakers, I guess.
