"The biggest stupid idea," Kilcullen said, "was to invade Iraq in the first place." Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer, who helped Petraeus design his 2007 counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, called the decision to invade Iraq "stupid" -- in fact, he said "fucking stupid" -- and suggested that if policy-makers apply the manual's lessons, similar wars can be avoided in the future.
According to the Huffington Post, Kilcullen has written a forthcoming manual on counterinsurgency strategy. "The handbook seeks to provide a framework for considering whether Washington should intervene in foreign countries' counterinsurgency operations, raising difficult questions about whether such nations deserve U.S. support; under what conditions that support should occur, and whether success is possible at acceptable cost. No systematic approach to strategic-level questions in counterinsurgency currently exists for senior U.S. government officials."
Did he ask whether Washington should intervene in foreign countries' counterinsurgency operations? No there is a good question to ponder some 6 years after the fact. Of course, history books are littered with examples of grand powers becoming involved with the affairs of lesser states. Yet some believe that history should not stand in the way of idealistic goals.
Hence the neocons Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Norman Podhoretz, Richard Perle, William Kristoff, John Bolton, Elliot Abrams, James Woolsey, Jr. and Daniel Pipes to name but a few. A small knot of ideologues who conspired for years to invade Iraq as a base for establishing their 'new world order.' The naive and careless George W. Bush proved to be the magic lamp for unleashing their dastardly plan.
The biggest stupid idea," Kilcullen said, "was to invade Iraq in the first place."
Duh!
