Why didn’t their strategic plan work? It’s a failed business plan, a failed military plan, and one of the worst foreign policy plans in the history of our country. It failed at every level.
The goal of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq was to unseat governments that wouldn’t deal with the American Corporations after their oil – Taliban and Saddam Hussein. That goal couldn’t be stated because there is no provision or support for America becoming an Imperial Power, using government resources and American soldiers lives to further business interests. We don’t do that. So, the kind of massive invasion that would have been needed would have required a mobilization of forces, a draft, and support that was out of the question. To have succeeded, it would have had to have been a war of conquest and occupation. So, it was a doomed business plan because it was win/lose. If we won, the Afghani and Iraqi would lose their countries. If we lost, the Afghani and Iraqi would never be interested in doing business with us. I suppose it was like a hostile takeover with insufficient capital.
It wasn’t a failed military plan in the short term. Our forces barrelled through Afghanistan and Iraq without a great deal of difficulty. But in the long run, it was a total flop, because there was no plan for what to do once we got there. I think that our Administration could get away with putting exiled Afghani and Iraqi into power and get on with their business interests. They had a clear plan about developing the oil fields there. The were just incredibly naive to think that the exiles would be accepted, or that they were on the up and up. So the military plan was a battle plan, not a war plan. Thank heaven that Bush and Cheney weren’t in charge of D-Day!
It was a disaster as a foreign policy plan because it wasn’t a foreign policy plan at all. It may have fooled Americans into believing we were fighting a just cause, a war on terror, going after Al Qaeda, but it didn’t fool the world. I expect the British were after oil too. Everyone else either said "no thanks" or stuck their toes only lightly in the water. But the biggest failure of all was in the area of our stated goal to be the world’s "sole superpower." That bit of illusion is dead for all time.
I think it’s all going to come out in the open now. Maybe they can block some of it, but not all of it. We’ll know enough to have to deal with our shame for decades.
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