>the rise of ISIS and various militias
Where is ISIS now?
>the collapse of Iraqi society
Iraq's human development index is currently higher than it's ever been. It has a fairly typical human development index for its region. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-development-index?t...
You guys will define "winning" so narrowly that if the Middle East continues to be volatile, that means the US must've lost. The type of victory that the US achieved in WW2 is an atypically high standard for "victory".
> You guys will define "winning" so narrowly that if the Middle East continues to be volatile, that means the US must've lost. The type of victory that the US achieved in WW2 is an atypically high standard for "victory".
Sorry what, I wasn't aware that I was a member of you guys.
Look, the US invaded Iraq in GW2, they killed off Saddam very quickly, but taking control of the country and settling down all of the violence took well over a decade, and dealing with ISIS took much the same amount of time.
You can regard that as a victory, but it sure doesn't look like much of one to me, particularly as Saddam (for all his faults) suppressed the militias like ISIS who ended up becoming a major concern for the US.
In a world where the US had never invaded Iraq, do you think the region would look much different today?