quote:
Send spec op units after OBL and every member of al-queda and use lots and lots of drones during the campaign.

Absolutely stay away from invading Iraq and Afghanistan and leave Saddam alone to ensure stability across the Mideast.

Very interesting. Perhaps this was the best option.

It would not be a lasting solution, however, because, AQ would suffer losses, disperse and then reappear some years later in the form of ISIL or some other named group.

Bush seems to have been going for a LASTING and permanent solution. If we give him the benefit of the doubt, he saw removal of Saddam as a way to deny AQ a possible future safe-haven to regroup.

I am willing to concede for the sake of discussion that invading Iraq and deposing Saddam was a mistake. I have to concede that the costs outweighed the benefits. As such, I'd like to move on from that for the sake of this thread at least.

I'd like to continue to think about what the US should have done besides continue to contain Saddam, suppress him, keep UN inspector pressure on him, occasionally bomb him when he shoots at us, etc.

Destroy the Taliban without occupation of A-ghan. That's a popular idea. A good idea, I think. Sure, we may have had to go back there in a future time to again destroy the Taliban, but, perhaps we should have been realistic enough to set aside the notion that the USA could establish lasting peace and stability in the ME. Perhaps the USA should have pursued a course of action that did not have lasting peace and stability as a primary objective.

That said, what should the USA have done?

We haven't heard from many of our most active posters. I know that they have some thoughts on this.