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Originally Posted by theknife
-is it clearly in our national interest? (Gulf War - yes...Afghanistan - yes....Iraq - debatable)
-does it have clearly defined, measurable objectives and exit scenarios? (Gulf War - yes...Afghanistan - yes....Iraq - no)
-is it winnable? (Gulf War - yes...Afghistan - could be if we actually finished it....Iraq - no)
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I didn't mean to second guess your opinions, but thanks for clarifying them for me. I had hoped to point out that the Gulf War and the Iraq were were actually one and the same, drawn out over a period of twelve years. The Gulf War hit a lull during wich Iraq fired on our planes as they patrolled the no-fly zones, and we fired cruise missiles whenever Clinton needed a boost in the polls. The fact that neither side engaged in more battles doesn't lessen the fact that both sides were still trying to kill each other. The military did meet it's objectives in 1991 before it pulled out, but the war was never won to anybody's satisfaction.
You may argue that the war still hasn't been won to anybody's satisfaction, but you can't point to the Gulf War as an example of a good war because it's still the same war.
The objectives simply changed in 2003. In 1991 the goal was to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait and cripple their army to prevent a second invasion. In the time since the goal was simply to cage Saddam in and keep him from harassing his neighbors, which we did half assed for a while, depending mostly on the UN to take responsibility. The fact is we started into this Vietnam-esque morass a long time ago, it simply never got much attention because few soldiers died. But did the US or the UN ever have any idea how to remove the threat Iraq still posed? No, not until we decided to invade and take Saddam prisoner. This was the only solution that didn't include a) nuking Iraq, b) endlessly sending planes to get shot down for ever, or c) persuading the rest of the middle east to take care of Iraq while we abandoned the reigion. Am I missing something, was there a better way to neutralize Iraq's threat without invading?