THE JANUARY 2014 AL QAEDA TAKEOVER of the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, the scenes of some of the bitterest fighting between American and insurgent forces only a few years earlier, has prompted numerous questions along the lines of “Who lost Iraq?” and “Was the intervention in Iraq generally, and in these towns in particular, all in vain?” Of course, with hindsight, more and more Americans have come to the conclusion that the answer to the latter question is “yes.” It is always easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback, and Washington has no shortage of those who look brilliant when they start looking backward.
At the time, however, the case for intervention, backed by intelligence that many policy makers took at face value (whether they should have done so is still another issue) was far stronger than it appears today. Indeed, there are still those who firmly believe, in the face of so much evidence to the contrary, that, as one analyst has put it, “whatever was gained came at horrendous cost. But Iraq is changed, and in many ways for the better. So not all is lost.” Perhaps.
