I never thought this was a good idea. On a practical level, we could never maintain that level of brutality to win. For our troops' sake, I didn't want to put them in the position of coming home as killers rather than soldiers and Marines. See this post.
And finally, even if we could "win" that way, this would be the peace of a graveyard. We'd sow nothing but resentment and a generation later those we beat would recover enough to fight again. Kind of like Russia in Chechnya.
Instead, our careful tactics that spared lives have won the war and allowed even our enemies to switch sides. We are creating an ally for the future and not just another war deferred:
In hindsight, U.S. troops will get credit for keeping their own casualties down to historically low levels (compared to any other 20th century conflict). Professional soldiers have already recognized this feat, and are studying American techniques intensively. Less well appreciated are the efforts the Americans made to keep civilian losses down. But foreign military experts are coming to appreciate that this aspect of the war paid long term benefits. Iraqis saw, day by day, the efforts by American troops to avoid hurting civilians. Initially, Iraqis saw that as an American weakness, but in the long run they recognized it as a sensibility rarely seen in the Middle East. This will have long term consequences for relations between the United States and Iraq.
This is the difference between the liberation that we carried out in Iraq and the conquest that Russia achieved in Chechnya.
And there will be consequences for the region. For all the complaints that we've blundered in Iraq, we've fought smart and will be able to exploit this success as an example to others of the alternative to jihadi nihilism and death.
If we persist through to our accumulating victory, our military personnel will always be able to hold their heads high proud for how they fought as soldiers and Marines and be proud of what they achieved.
