Policy Advisement on Efficacy of Nation Building in Iraq

Dear Mr. President and Mr. Secretary of State,

After a decade to examine the consequences of America's decision to invade Iraq -- and engage in a massive nation building effort after successfully ousting the brutal Baath Party dictatorship of Saddam Hussein -- it has become abundantly clear that a war fought under false pretenses can never be productive in a geopolitical sense. As foreign policy scholars have observed in the wake of your predecessor's calamitous course of action, "President Bush said that our goal was a unified, democratic Iraq that could govern itself, sustain itself, defend itself, and serve as an ally in the 'War on Terror' & #8230; (but) it's apparent that no part of this goal has been achieved, and that the progress made toward them is fleeting" (Babbin, 2012). This is why the administration's current commitment to a...
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