I believe that invading Iraq has made the middle east more unstable, the world less safe, and America poorer, fewer, less safe, and more despised, and I think the war in Iraq did all of that.... and none of that is good.
This is the kind of mindset which denotes a 'soda straw perspective' to me. I coulda said the same exact thing about Europe, during the bitter battles of WWII, I might have made the same arguments for the South Pacific, when we routinely lost more soldiers in a day, than we have lost in a year in Iraq, and I coulda stood in the fields of Antietam and cried endlessly over what terrible devastation and death our nation had encountered at the hand of Lincoln.
You are taking a simple emotive response to war, and trying to paint it as the "result" of war, as if that were our only objective all along. This is liberal intellectual dishonesty at its finest. You are propagating an illusion of something that is not legitimate or fair. Yes, the bombs continue to explode, violence escalates throughout the middle east, and people are dying. I don't know how long you've followed the regional history, but this isn't something new. What is new to the region, is democracy.
I am sure, because I have read books about it, that after the Civil War, many people were skeptical about reconstruction of the South. I am sure that we had many people with your same soda straw perspectives, and they simply saw the death and devastation caused by the war, and shook their heads in hopelessness and despair, and blamed Lincoln personally. I am positive there were many who didn't accept the outcome of the war, and formed 'insurgent' groups who instigated 'sectarian' violence, most notably, the KKK. I know that many people supported the KKK and opposed democracy and freedom for black people in America. I know this lasted for the better part of the next century, before America resolved the issue with the Civil Rights legislation. I know that, to this day, there are STILL problems faced in America, involving violence and death, as a result of the Civil War, fought well over a century ago. So, my common sense tells me, that in 1868... 1870... you couldn't prejudge history, or make any historic determinations or observations regarding the Civil War, whether it was "best" for America, any more than you can in Iraq in 2006. It's clearly better for America to have a democratic Arab ally in the oil-rich heart of where the radicals want to build a Caliphate, and next door to a nut who is building a nuke to annihilate Israel with. The long-term, "non-soda-straw" perspective, is important to be able to see here.
The common factor is democracy and freedom, and it somehow always seems to prevail. Iraq has tasted it, and they will prevail with our support. In fact, the only way that they won't prevail, is if we abandon them now and allow others to undermine their democracy. The seeds have been planted, the sprouts have emerged, but there is a long way to go, to a bountiful harvest.
I love how Liberals justify not standing up for liberty, freedom and democracy, because we have to be fair to all ideals and ideologies. We are America, and we have always stood for Freedom, Liberty, and Democracy. We are not required to take a back seat to other ideologies, or stand for anything other than what we are as a nation. In short, it's what we do.
Iraq has the potential to be one of the greatest nations on the planet, not just in the middle east. They have huge oil capacity, they have profound historical archeology, they have some of the smartest medical and scientific minds, they have strong sense of national pride in their country, and a cultural diversity much like the US. These things can never be realized in a country controlled by a dictator, they exploit the nations wealth for their own palaces and pleasures, and the people of Iraq never prosper. It is through democracy and freedom, that Iraq will eventually thrive and prosper as a nation, and perhaps provide hope for other Arab nations.
