That's a tough question (thanks for prompting me to think about it and attempt an answer)...
I have little direct knowledge of how things have gone there over the past 15+ years, but it has clearly been tragic in so many ways. We can look back at an array of "what-ifs" — what if we'd gone in with enough soldiers and resources in the first 6 months to lock things down and stifle the chaos and allow a relatively peaceful transition to post-Saddam governance (something like the Balkans model, with a much higher ratio of soldiers to population)? What if we hadn't gone in at all? It's interesting to speculate, but impossible to change.
I think most of us look back on our time in Iraq (also Afghanistan, and some other places) and try to understand what we accomplished, try to rationalize our way to something other than futility, but it's hard. Personally, I try to remember that small things can have unpredictable, time-delayed, and outsized impact. Even brief exposures: to education, to the momentary experience of freedom, to fleeting but sincere acts of cross-cultural kindness and respect, to any of the countless small moments of goodness that surely occurred in the midst of everything else... the memory of these things is not erased by the bad things that followed. These are seeds, and they won't all grow, but there's at least a chance that some of them might. It is small consolation, but it's far more than nothing.
Thanks Jeff, I certainly don’t have any answers (or experience!) but really appreciate your insight and I absolutely believe it’s the little things which so often resonate and have impact in the long-term.
Hi Jeff, what a fascinating way to look back on the history of 20 years ago and what was happening in Iraq then.
I always think there is lots to be learnt towards how we approach situations today from the lessons of the past.
Interested to know how you think things have panned out in Iraq, given your hope at the time and developments since?
That's a tough question (thanks for prompting me to think about it and attempt an answer)...
I have little direct knowledge of how things have gone there over the past 15+ years, but it has clearly been tragic in so many ways. We can look back at an array of "what-ifs" — what if we'd gone in with enough soldiers and resources in the first 6 months to lock things down and stifle the chaos and allow a relatively peaceful transition to post-Saddam governance (something like the Balkans model, with a much higher ratio of soldiers to population)? What if we hadn't gone in at all? It's interesting to speculate, but impossible to change.
I think most of us look back on our time in Iraq (also Afghanistan, and some other places) and try to understand what we accomplished, try to rationalize our way to something other than futility, but it's hard. Personally, I try to remember that small things can have unpredictable, time-delayed, and outsized impact. Even brief exposures: to education, to the momentary experience of freedom, to fleeting but sincere acts of cross-cultural kindness and respect, to any of the countless small moments of goodness that surely occurred in the midst of everything else... the memory of these things is not erased by the bad things that followed. These are seeds, and they won't all grow, but there's at least a chance that some of them might. It is small consolation, but it's far more than nothing.
Thanks Jeff, I certainly don’t have any answers (or experience!) but really appreciate your insight and I absolutely believe it’s the little things which so often resonate and have impact in the long-term.