Pensees

Observation: had we deposited knowledgeable "advisor units", who spoke Arabic, along the way into Baghdad during Op I.F. -- while increasing our routes of entry by an order of magnitude -- we would have gained the optimal {space-time-notional} position to see our objectives reached once the next phase materialized.

(Also: had that really been "our next-phase plan", Turkey's back-stab would have been particularly insufferable).

For instance, watch On Demand, Military Channel: Delta Company, first episode (attack into Iraq from Kuwait). See how limited our push was, how much better it would have been had we had Petraeus's plan back then, and the soldiers to see it done.

(Note: I think we should also demand to define the term 'population protection. It should be defined as an adequate force with which to consistently, knowledgeably enforce the principles of objective justice (which is an entropy-lowering psychological point), and by 'objective justice' I mean an attractor of local equilibrium, which is a more complicated point.)

The Abbreviated Version: we should devote an awful lot of energy to trumpeting the following idea:

With 20/20 hindsight, this was the best available Pre-War Strategy, with which to accomplish our goals (which were worthy of us). This was the best way to pacify, persuade, and evolve Iraqi "culture" toward something resembling a stable lowercase-s state.