Ah, there we have the Iraq problem in a nut shell. No plan afterwards, and no appreciation of the local politics reference Sunni and Shia. Of the obvious opportunities that Iran would take to open up a ‘road’ to Syria and then to Lebanon.
To disband the Iraqi army and send a shed load of trained and angry soldiers home with their weapons to unemployment and loss of face. A desperate failure of politics and intelligence, or a surfeit of arrogance?
Throw in a mentality that thought it was cheaper to sub contract security to the likes of Blackwater and you get a recipe for the disaster that followed. I remember one critique of what happened in Iraq after the war. One pundit actually said that putting a relatively junior 3STAR in charge was not a good idea.
As (ex)military blokes think on those words – a JUNIOR 3 star!
This gents, will be my last posting on this thread.