The Impossible Question in Iraq That Never Should Have Happened

As the Islamic State of Iraq and the Syria sweeps through Iraq, capturing cities, thousands of soldiers and hundreds of millions of dollars, the United States is confronted with a very difficult question in the face of a very startling and new reality.

What do we do now?

Unfortunately this is a question that is next to impossible to answer.

If we re-engage in Iraq, the political will and support from the American people would be incredibly low. Sending troops into this growing mess will cost American lives that we are not willing to give, American treasure that we quite frankly don't have, and would end up simply delaying what appears to be an inevitable collapse of the “new” Iraq that we helped to usher in with nearly nine years of war.

U.S. Marine James Blake Miller, dubbed the “Marlboro Marine” by the media, smoking a cigarette while serving in Iraq during the Battle of Fallujah.

Getting involved again in Iraq is not a good option, but neither is sitting it out.

If we stay out of this mess we risk ISIS setting up a safe zone for terrorist activity and training, possibly losing Iraq completely, and sitting idle as the momentum builds and then spreads to Syria and who knows where else. We risk Iraq and the surrounding area falling into an even worse position than it was when we invaded in 2003.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

There are no good answers here. But the impossible question that we are now faced with should have never come up in the first place.

There were some major mistakes that were made during both presidencies that have led to us being between Iraq and a hard place.

• We didn't have a clear and firm objective to begin with. During President George W. Bush's address to the nation on the eve of the invasion, he repeatedly talked about freeing the Iraqi people and setting up a “united, stable and free country.” At the same time, the mission was to also disarm Iraq and rid the world of weapons of mass destruction.
• Yet by December of 2003, Saddam Hussein had been captured, the regime toppled and less than a year later it was determined that there really were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambition had died long ago. At that point, our original objective had been achieved, yet we stayed in Iraq for another seven years.
• We left without winning. Quite frankly we didn't win or lose, we just quit. Winning in war is a lot different than what today's society reflects. You don't win by just showing up and you don't win by giving it your best shot. In war, you punish your enemy so much and so hard that they lose the will to fight and give up – that's winning. While we certainly took a lot of terrorists and bad guys off the battlefield, we never reached a point where they truly gave up or lost the will to fight. Instead, they simply went into hiding and waited for our departure.
• We fight a borderless enemy within borders. This is the nature of terrorists unfortunately. They have no country affiliation and often do not operate solely from one nation. Yet when we bring the fight to them, we often operate within national borders and are restricted as to where we can pursue them. You will never be able to truly win if you fight this way.
• We are using our military the wrong way. After Hussein was captured and the WMD boogeyman disappeared, we set our military out to rebuild, to capture the hearts and minds of the local communities, to build partnerships and show how kind and giving we were. We used our military as if they were the Peace Corps.
• These mistakes have created the impossible situation that now confronts us in Iraq. They are also being repeated in Afghanistan with a malleable objective, a coming withdrawal, an enemy that is beyond borders and the use of our military for Peace Corps purposes.

If you want a glimpse of what Afghanistan could look like in a few years, you're getting it right now.

For Afghanistan, these mistakes have already been made and it is far too late to correct them. But there are lessons here to learn and corrections to make for the future because despite what the president has said, al-Qaeda is not decimated, they are not on the run, and radical Islam is not slowing down, in fact it is spreading.

A United States Marine Corps carry team moves the flag-draped transfer case holding the remains of Master Sgt. Aaron Torian of Paducha, KY, during a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base February 18, 2014 in Dover, Delaware. Assigned to 2nd Marine Special Operations Battalion, Torian, 36, was on his sixth combat deployment when he was killed by an improvised explosive device February 15 in Afghanistan. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

If we are truly going to eradicate this constant threat, here is what we need to do:

• Set an objective and stick to it. The only objective you should have in war is to win. The only way to win is to unleash such a brutal and swift retaliation that your enemy loses the will to fight.
• The American people have not lost their appetite for war, they have lost their appetite for giving up. If World War II had taken nine years to “win” and it became obvious that we were not going to achieve a decisive victory, do you think Americans would have been behind it? Of course not.
• Commit to fighting terrorists wherever they are or stop waging wars. It's very simple: if we are waging war against terrorists, then bring the war to them no matter where they hide. Fighting them within the confines of a sovereign nation is never going to work. We need to either make that commitment or stop waging wars against them in limited fashion.
• Use the military for the real purpose – killing. Sure it's an unpleasant truth, but the job of the military is to kill and destroy in an awesome manner. They should be a vicious and supremely trained attack dog that we keep on a leash until someone messes with us. When anyone screws with us, we let the attack dog loose and they rip our enemy to shreds. When they finish, when we win that fight, they come back and that's it.
• Our military is not in the business of rebuilding nations or serving as good will ambassadors. Quite frankly, the notion of our armed forces being a “force for good” is dangerous and misguided. Our military, no matter what branch, is a force for killing, for destruction, for striking fear into the hearts of those who would do us wrong. They are not a global force for good, they are an American force for victory. Sending them into combat for any other reason is a gross disservice to them and their families.

These changes in how we wage war admittedly make it far more harsh, far more brutal, far more ruthless and far more like, well, war. War is ugly, it is nasty, and the more we try to make it look nicer and less brutal, the more problems we are going to have.

If we continue to delude ourselves into the belief of a “force for good” and that simply leaving the fight is reason to celebrate, then we will continue to face the after effects of those decisions and be left in the impossible, and ultimately avoidable position that we find ourselves in right now.

For other articles and writings by Darrell, please visit the Milk Crate.

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