I'm not sure whether we were ever legally at war with Iraq. Article 1, section 8 of the US Constitution gives the power to declare war to the Congress, even though the use of that power has been out of fashion since the Vietnam War era.
Technically we were certainly at war with Iraq. We invaded their country, soundly defeated their army, disbanded their army, found and executed Saddam Hussain and put in place a new government. However, it seems to me that we haven't been at war with Iraq since President Bush declared "mission accomplished" several years ago. We met our military and political objectives. The tyrant Saddam was defeated and executed, the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction were found to be nonexistent, the minority Sunnis are now out of power and the majority Shia in power and we established a new "democratic" Iraqi government that even consists of 25% women representatives (far better than our own government).
Yet we still talk about the war in Iraq? Who are we at war with and with whom do we negotiate an end to the war? Sounds more like a civil war doesn't it? No, the war ended years ago. If we want to be honest with ourselves, we need to start talking about the occupation of Iraq not the war in Iraq. Iraq has a "democratic" government, it has an army and police force that we have been training for at least 3 years, and they have oil to generate national income. It appears that a majority of Iraqis want the USA out of Iraq. A majority of US citizens want us out of Iraq. Yet the USA is still there. How is this not an occupation? That is a serious question that deserves an answer.
The mess in Iraq almost makes the Vietnam War look like a military success. We have to stay in Iraq to prevent bloodshed that largely may be due to us remaining in Iraq. Any success or lack of success in Iraq is used as an excuse for the USA to remain in Iraq. John McCain seriously sees us remaining in Iraq for decades.
The "moral" obligation of the USA to remain in Iraq is rapidly diminishing. The Iraqi government has shown that they cannot or will not govern. Even the USA cannot afford to spend 10-12 billion dollars a month in Iraq forever. Remember, that ultimately, the most important thing in the USA is the dollar, not "moral obligation".
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We have been in Iraq so long we have created numerous amounts of new enemies that we are now faced with. We should have never gone to Iraq but now we must stay because of our own ignorance.
pNo we do not have to stay in Iraq. Iraq has a democratic government, an army and a police force. They can take care of themselves. Anyone with a brain knew that we would be handing over power in Iraq to the majority Shia. We also knew that the Shia would eventually take their revenge on the minority Sunni. It should have been pretty easy to predict that the Shia in Iran would want to influence the Shia in Iraq since those are the two countries that have the most Shia muslims. Sure we can leave open the option to strike at global terrorist that may be in Iraq. But we sure do not need 150,000 troops to do that. Staying in Iraq is creating more enemies of the USA not fewer enemies.
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