Neocons promised Iraq would be Model of Democracy, Left US Holding the Bag

http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/neocons-promised-democracy.html

Neocons promised Iraq would be Model of Democracy, Left US Holding the Bag
By contributors | Jun. 18, 2014
By Adam Quinn, University of Birmingham

Dorothy Parker famously reacted to the ringing of the telephone with the phrase, “What fresh Hell is this?” Occupants of the White House could be forgiven for having adopted the same practice when it comes to Iraq, to say nothing of its broader neighbourhood.

Since 2003 (and, really, for years before that) Iraq has become, with only the most fleeting exceptions, a source of nothing but the most exquisitely awful sort of news. But even by its own standards, the events of the past 72 hours have surely exceeded the expectations of even connoisseurs of tactical disaster.



~snip~

Is it all Obama’s fault?

Hanging over all this is the question of the United States’ role. After somewhere north of $2 trillion dollars spent and thousands of American lives sacrificed (to say nothing of Iraqi ones), can this harvest of ashes really be the sum total of what has been achieved? And wasn’t the worst case scenario of a fractured Iraq torn, wracked by extreme sectarian violence, supposed to have been averted by the surge of American troops in 2007 and the counterinsurgency strategy that went with it?



$2 trillion later …

~snip~

It was argued that by overthrowing tyranny, and replacing it with a liberal democratic state where Sunni, Shia and Kurd lived side by side in peace and prosperity, the United States would be facilitating the birth of a new a new role model for the Muslim world. They would be draining the swamp of disillusion, economic decline and extreme religiosity that had given rise to radical Islamist militancy. It seems remarkable now that this scenario could have been sincerely proposed by so many serious people.