this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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Its been written down in history as a gigantic failure; this era's Vietnam. But as far as post WWII US invasions go, it met its goals in the end. Even if it tanked the reputations of everyone involved. A flat tax and foreign private interest rights remain ensrined in the Iraqi constitution. And its just democratic enough to earnestly tell the US to fuck off but not sovereign enough to ever make them.

This is strictly in comparison to other US invasions. Compared to Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan its was an actual - if only marginal - success. You have to reach into all the minor, "light touch", interventions to find something more successful.

Anyways I'm not trying to be like "the Iraq War was good, actually". Its just had this reputation of being the "dumb war" compared to Afghanistan. But after the US flat out gave Afghanistan back to the Taliban, we should reevaluate its position in US interventions and recognize how many are total abject failures.

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[–] Breath_Of_The_Snake@hexbear.net 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Totally agreed, but the anti-America pedant in me feels the need to point something out. That thing being that amerikkka pays lip service to the UN definition of WMD. America has a weapon in every category that the UN covers. Despite that, America falls back on him having chemical weapons. He did have those, ask Iran. That being said, America has them. Russia has them, and damn near every actually powerful nation has them. It’s a loose definition. Nobody gives a fuck about chlorine artillery shells, but it is generally agreed upon if we choose to use UN definition(which America fails on literally every count despite using as a cudgel) that those count as WMD.

It’s not logical or consistently applied. It’s a weapon of the liberal rules based order against “upstarts”.

He did have them, under a specific and hypocritical definition of having “not ok to use” weapons that are inaccurately called WMD. A radiation ray that only targets the pentagon would count as a WMD despite being specifically targeted. It’s a bogus premise hiding behind the general consensus that indiscriminate assault is bad (which it is, for the most part). The definition is flawed.