Well technically low intensity conflicts against terrorism are not actually war

But the iraq war is a war since it's against another nation. Fighting non-state entity is often times deemed to be something else

>"terrorism"
we just had this discussion

Functionally though it's irrelevant since the use of force laws are more or less the same

We haven't really invaded a major country in a while

Just been involved in the same territory, like we fight against ISIS in Syria

But not actually fought Syria

And yet we fought Al-qaeda in Iraq until they're effectively gone, but we're still there, and just keep finding reasons to stay.

identifying a pattern yet?

invasion without official declaration of war

Caesar would be impressed

politically its ingenius

Iraq is a mess. Swartzkopf was right when he said we have no national interest in toppling Iraq. Regardless of intention the removal of that power has created a vaccum so when we leave Iran will complete their drive to move in.

though only a state as phenonenally unequalled in power would be able to get away with it

>Iran
not even going to dignify that

Well staying behind is important in preventing another catastrophe from happening. When you pull out, it leaves behind a power vacuume, and it's common for someone to come in and fill it. When we left Vietnam, millions of people were killed, raped and tortured, because as one might expect, us deciding to leave did not mean the Viet Cong were going to leave their own country and stop fighting. The moment we leave, they will regroup and come back, as evidenced by the partial withdrawal in Iraq leading to an uprising in the terrorists again, and virtually every other time pulling out has failed. The cost of maintaining a small troop presence to keep a lid on things is quite small, so it's worth doing so another massive troop surge is not needed.

https://dahfutur.blogspot.com/2017/04/iraq-before-and-after.html

Also iraq has for the most part improved

"The country's electricity had dropped from a 9300 megawatt capacity in 1990 to 3300 by early 2003 before the U.S. invasion, nearly a third, and rose to a 13,000 megawatt capacity as of 2016, after the U.S. intervention. [3][4] Saddam selectively cut off power to groups he was attempting to murder, such as the Kurds, and left them without food, water and electricity in a barren desert that was almost impossible to survive in without. Access to clean water had been reduced dramatically, and in 2004 only approximately 45% of rural areas had access to clean water and 96% in urban areas, compared to 77% in rural areas and 98% in urban areas in 2012, with a dramatic improvement in the quality of the water as well, particularly in regards to salt content, as well."

GDP has gone up from basically zero to 230 billion dollars ayear

Iran is a regional power. Nature abhors a vacum. I suppose it is also possible that Turkey or SA will move in but basically *someone* is going to dominate that area and it won't be the Iraqis.

Saddam released all the prisoners, turned off the power and so on, and the country was a mess before we invaded

While it's not a Utopia by any standards, it's far better than it was

The saddam regime was destabilizing, in part by his actions, and so U.S. intervention made sense as a way to keep the country from going off a cliff

It's actually not doing worse

Like objectivley everything is improving

By every metric

Previous to our bumble-headed intervention there was a ballance of power between Iran and Iraq. That is now gone.

Thats nice, can we leave now?

we have our own problems

Probably yeah we can leave it won't hurt *us*.

Leaving would undue all the good we've built up and allow the country to fall again

why is it even our fucking problem

You have to remain for quite some time before a country can be stable on it's own again, agood example is that we are still in Germany and Japan to this day. To be succesful,m you need a small skeleton crew there

Iraq's not our fuxking vassal or territory

Japan is a tributary state from treaties, not at all the same thing.

One is for the good of the world, it's a humintarian thing, other human beings matter. Two is becuase these things always have a habit of biting us in the ass. Imagine if you will a war in the middle between Iraq, Israel, Iran, Syria and so on, country's with WMD's and massive armies. We're talking millions dead. Allies would be brought in to the war, say the U.S. and Russia, and this could lead to escalating tensions. If you look at what's going on between the U.S. and Russia over Syria today, it's not that hard to imagine that if you add a few chemical weapon's to the mix it wouldn't make things that much worse

Like, if the whole middle east destabilizes it will effect us eventually

>for the good of the world
at the expense of the nation, fuck that

If the world goes to hell we go with it

It eventually comes back to effect us