The mililtary operation succeeded

Overthrow evil dictator - check
Eliminate (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction - check
(Accomplishable) Mission accomplished - check
So, why are our soldiers still there - ?

Common Dreams features a James Carroll column from the Boston Globe:

However misconceived, the project of ridding the world of Saddam and his Ba’athist regime was indeed a military operation, and it succeeded. But bringing order to a post-Saddam Iraq, especially once sectarian rivalries were set loose, was not a project for which the US war machine was remotely suited.


...

“Coalition” notwithstanding, the almost exclusively US occupation became the inflammable medium in which sectarian disputes flared, with Iraq’s warring parties united only in seeing that occupation as an enemy. Let’s call this repeated insanity the mistake of “supermilitarism,” choosing war over diplomacy, and expecting order to follow, instead of chaos.


The mistake was made at the beginning, in the middle, and is being repeated now, in what should be the end. The mistake is so deeply rooted in American structures of imagination, economy, and government that it isn’t even perceived as a mistake by those in power.

Those in power understand that the perception of stability in Iraq is far more important than the realities on the ground. Thus, the "metrics" of all the schools the U.S. was building (painting), stories which "never get published in the media", and how the "surge" was working because of the decrease in deaths. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News have told us so.


The plan all along was to stay in Iraq "forever". What else explains the construction of the one billion dollar edifice of the U.S. embassy, or the permanent military bases, or the decision to disband the Iraqi military so very early on.

This stay in Iraq "forever" plan was NOT what was sold to the American public.


The notion that our military can "bring democracy to the Iraqi people" or any people has always been delusional. A nation cannot export democracy at the end of a bayonet. Although the U.S. routinely goes abroad looking for demons to destroy.