> the US builds soft power by being a reliable ally (when we commit) against a world full of active hostile powers.
Still waiting for the US to provide evidence of WMD in Iraq. /s
Sorry, I can’t stand hypocrisy.
Still waiting for the US to provide evidence of WMD in Iraq. /s
Sorry, I can’t stand hypocrisy.
The problem is that the invasion of Iraq was an incompetent bloody shitshow. We had no reconstruction plan, we didn't make good local allies, we disassembled the state.
If we had quickly spun up a competent new plausibly democratic government without an insurgency, nobody would care whether or not we had found WMDs. 'Saddam was a dick, and now he's gone' would have been perfectly adequate, and our allies would have gladly come along for the next invasion in Myanmar or Iran or whoever the bad guy of the month was.
(but obviously, that's not the way history went)
Well, yes, if we had done something magical and impossible, that would have distracted attention.
But even if the war hadn’t been a war of aggression based on lies led by people devoted to corrupt interests which shaped not only the decision to go to war but also the conduct of the occupation, that was never going to happen.
But if it wasn’t for those corrupt influences, which definitely contributed to how bad things actually went, we wouldn’t have gone to war in the first place. The problems with the outcomes were not unrelated to the bad motivations for war, they were tied to a common source.
- If the war had gone well, nobody would care about the false claims.
- If we hadn't claimed there were WMDs, and the war had gone badly, there would be other reasons to dislike the war.
- If we had found chemical weapons, and the war had still gone badly, nobody would newly think the war was justified (everyone knew that Iraq at one point had chemical weapons, obviously).
Yes, but you also need to not support other dicks. Like, why are saudis bombing weddings in Yemen? And for how many years now? They still have Patriots “guarding” their airspace(yes, Iranian drones are dope). My point is, be consistent. If you’re a “world police” then don’t let anyone invade anyone else for any reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMD_conjecture_in_the_aftermat...
Right, very solid.
just a powerful peaceful ally threatening the world with world peace.