Hopefully you guys are ready for having to do this all again in 10 years, possibly less.
If there is no regime change, which i dont see happening... this is just buying time for counties in that region that otherwise would have been delivered a nuclear weapon.
All the more reason this should have been done right from the start.
GW1 lead-up was the pattern we should have followed. Get you Authorization of Force that gets national leadership buy-in. That gives you a better chance getting public buy-in. They watched the debates. They saw the arguments and they watched the vote. Everyone knows then, including your enemy, that is the combine will of he American people.
Then you work with your allies. You explain your reasoning and present your clear, attainable, measurable victory and exit conditions.
Following the process buys you a lot more resistance to upsets and bad fortune.
Building your alliance gives you political cover and we could of already have a coalition of naval vessels ready to escort and patrol the Strait from the first hours.
The only naive mistake they made was thinking they could avoid the boots and let the uprising overthrow Saddam.
That never happened, no matter how much we bombed, until a young GI pulled him out of a Spider-Hole at bayonet point.
And then you have help for the reconstruction. Pottery Barn Rules.
If you leave a mess, it will turn into Syria and a patchwork of even more extremist warlords worse than the ones we assassinated.
