Victor Davis Hanson "Nothing Succeeds Like Success" on the Bandwagon Effect in War
In my study of military and diplomatic history, I have noticed that one often-important factor, both in public perception and sometimes even in the reality of a conflict, is the "bandwagon effect," which is to say: "Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan
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The "liberate the Iraqi people" goal got slipped in after the fact when other reasons didn't pan out. I don't recall "liberate the Iraqi people" being said much (let alone said frequently, or claimed to be important) before the war. The wind-up for the Iraq war was based on a sense of urgency and fear about the danger of WMD and terrorism.
The original motives given were (IIRC) Saddam's support for terrorism and punishment of Iraq for acts of war over the last 12 years. Liberation of the Iraqi people was mentioned but not emphasized. WMD grew from the truce terms, and were emphasized as we recruited other countries to join our coalition. It's quite true that the urgency of invading Iraq came from the fear of Iraqi WMD, but that is not the same thing as this being the only reason to invade Iraq: violation of the truce terms alone sufficed for the purposes of making this a just war. Which it still is -- a just war -- since nobody has even tried to disprove that Saddam was violating the truce.
Also "liberate the Iraqi people" is out the window if the Iraqis want US troops out.
Indeed, and if the (elected representative democratic) Iraqi government made such a request, we would withdraw our troops -- it would then be politically impossible to keep them in the country. The reality is that, yes, the Iraqis would like us to leave -- but they fear the consequences of our departure more than that desire, so they not only ask us to stay but to increase our force commmitment.
Of course if the Iraqi govt got its act together some decade soon it might be possible for the remaining coalition forces to exit without Iraq collapsing into one big sectarian civil war.
I think we'll have reached that point in another 2-5 years. I think that when this happens, we will pull out most of our forces, and leave a small garrison around some bases, with the approval, consent, and probably at the request of an Iraqi government well aware that the presence of a small American contingent would be enough to ensure their security against invasion by Iran.
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