Learning from Iraq

The main lie proven by Libya is that our military presence didn't cause jihadis to flock to Iraq. Our military presence allowed us to defeat the jihadis there.

Victor Hanson doesn't think much of our administration's handling of the Libya War.

I have deep concerns over our national interest in overthrowing Khaddafi given other pressing security issues relative to Europeans with the capability to fight (if less well), our lack of Congressional authorization, our twisting of the UN resolution to justify a war, and our lack of security in Benghazi that led to four dead Americans.

But we did win the war. Without any American casualties. I think we got lucky--and the war definitely took longer than we assumed it would--but we did win. I'll grant President Obama credit for that win. I don't even blame the administration for the post-war chaos. That happens.

But I do resent the lack of a post-war plan, given the heaps of abuse laid at Bush's feet for his alleged failure to plan away the post-war chaos in Iraq.

Further, while I may have no use for the war power's act, Democrats claim to love it. Yet the president didn't abide by that law to seek Congressional approval after the fact--and even denied it was a war at all (remember "time-limited, scope-limited kinetic action?").

And I do resent the administration's failure to protect our State Department people because they didn't want the appearance of anything wrong in the place in the period before our elections.

I sure resent their disguising of the fact that jihadis linked to al Qaeda assaulted our embassy and killed our people, until the facts could no longer be denied.

What I'd really like to note is that even though we led from behind and didn't put any US troops on the ground, jihadis and al Qaeda moved into Libya. Our anti-war side said that al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until we invaded and because we invaded. That isn't true, of course. And in general, jihadis flocked to Iraq under Saddam (remember Saddam's Fedayeen?) long before we invaded in 2003.

But in Libya, despite learning that liberal lesson of Iraq and staying out of Libya to avoid provoking a jihadi response, jihadis arose in Libya without our provocation of being there.

God help us and the Syrian people, our big-brained nuanced leaders want to apply other liberal lessons of Iraq to Syria.