Iraq is descending into the chaos that so many of us who opposed the war predicted. The human toll must be horrible, likely beyond the imagining of most living Americans.

This article says the US should go back in and my mind boggles. When will we ever learn? The author' makes two blatantly ludicrous assumptions:

The first is that the US government could re-intervene with good intentions. Not only is that utterly naive, it's impossible. For one thing, good intentions aren't enough. As Bush convincingly demonstrated, you also have to know what you're doing. Even now, even without right wing ideologues running foreign policy, this country hardly knows enough about Iraq to be effective. Nor does the US have a stable enough political culture to follow through.

Also, who says the US has good intentions? After all, a genuinely serious American solution to Iraq begins by bringing to justice those responsible for the invasion. That would demonstrate actual good intentions by the present American government to the citizens of Iraq. Dream on.

Assumption two is that the US has some kind of fairy dust that can help stave off catastrophe if we can just get a chance to sprinkle it around. There is no such thing. The American military would only make things far worse.

And since we don't know what we're doing, since the criminals will get off, and since we have no magic powders, the US must stay out. That doesn't preclude cooperation with an international coalition; it simply means that further unilateral military involvement is an absolutely terrible idea.

Iraq today is a tragedy, plain and simple. We will only add to the horror Bush perpetrated by unilaterally returning.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/stay-out-by-tristero.html