Originally Posted by spence
They're different situations. In both Libya and Syria you had active civil wars and substantial loss of civilian life.
A difference between those "active" civil wars and the simmering one in Iraq (in which there was substantial loss of civilian life) is that the Iraqi anti-government "rebels" had no significant power to make the war "active." The "rebels" in Syria and Libya, however, are aided with support and weapons by us and others. You could say that the silent "rebels," or oppressed victims, in Iraq were aided by the US and others to be free of the Saddamist shackles and to gain a supposedly democratic form of government. Which is supposedly what our aims are for helping the "rebels" in Syria and Lebanon.
The actions in Libya were led by the EU and permitted under UN Resolutions.
I recall you once saying we were the leader in the UN. Certainly, we are a major part of it. So, unless we made a formal objection in the UN, we permitted the actions (as well as actually supporting them) in Libya.
Not that life under Saddam was great for everyone but it was somewhat stable and didn't pose any immediate threat to the US.
They were "somewhat" stable, in Western perspective, because Saddam was being, or attempted to be so, stabilized by various sanctions and controls as well as supposed "inspections." It was understood, beneath the veneer of temporary control, that he would revert to his old ways and become "active" again, including with his WMD programs, when the controls were lifted. And he was, by far, more aggressive in terrorisms and wars than Assad or Qaddafi.
The civil wars in Libya and Syria have to be put in context of a post Saddam Iraq so they really can't be compared 1 to 1.
The comparison of two different entities cannot be 1 to 1 and don't have to be in order to see significant similarities. And the wars in Libya and Syria don't "have to be put in context of a post Saddam Iraq." The similarities I am exploring are with a Saddam Iraq, not a post Saddam Iraq. The main similarity being the forcing of regime change.
Was Iraq really stable when we left or did both Bush and Obama policy (primarily Bush) encourage a false sense of stability by enabling Shiite rule?
Was Iraq "really stable" before Bush invaded it, or was a "false sense of stability" encouraged by pseudo UN control?
And was Iraq more stable when we left than it was before we invaded, considering the formation of a democratic system of government which, if fostered, would allow all parties to participate? Certainly, you would contradict yourself if you claim Iraq was "somewhat" stable under Saddam's Baathist rule but couldn't be just as "somewhat" stable under Shiite rule? Probably even more stable since Saddam's was a minority rule. At any rate, the fledgling "democracy" had to be nourished and developed over time to become part of Iraqi culture. Abandoning it too soon would leave the newborn to the wolves.
I think it's justified as counter-terrorism but there's clearly a slippery slope. Today it's certainly not anything near the scale of the Iraq war nor are objectives at all similar.
The scale of our involvement is similar, but the size is much smaller, especially in number of troops on the ground. Actually, the scale is larger, since we are involved over much larger territory and numbers of states and cultures. As far as counter-terrorism goes, that was one of the "justifications" for the Iraq invasion. Of course, it was later characterized as actually influencing more terrorism. Which is a head-scratcher since our involvement now supposedly isn't supposed to foster more terrorism. Just sounds like political hypocrisy to justify doing what you previously opposed.
Clinton's foreign policy credentials would certainly be much stronger than Bush's at the start of their first term. But, Bush could look into people's souls.
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