from: [Eric LC]
to: [Stephen Hadley], [Peter Feaver], [William Inboden], [Meghan O'Sullivan]
cc: [Chloe Holt]
date: Nov 21, 2025, 2:30 AM
subject: Hand-off misses essential lessons of Iraq due to misconceiving the Iraq issue
Mr. Hadley, Professor Feaver, Professor Inboden, and Professor O'Sullivan,
I clarify and relitigate the Iraq issue at Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ using the law and facts that define the Iraq issue.
For that purpose, I have critically commented on Mr. Hadley in my review of the 27MAR23 American Enterprise Institute panel, "The Iraq War Series: Operation Iraqi Freedom" (actually, OIF meets the criteria for a Haassian "war of necessity"), on Professor Feaver and Hal Brands in my review of their 20JUN19 National Review article, "Lessons from the Iraq War" (actually, the UNSCR 678 enforcement was the keystone for "pax Americana"), and on Professor Inboden in my advice to improve his 15AUG16 Foreign Policy article, "It’s Impossible to Count the Things Wrong With the Negligent, Spurious, Distorted New Biography of George W. Bush".
I have not critically commented on Professor O'Sullivan before. Her misconception that the "intelligence...was tragically later proven wrong" echoes President Bush's misconception in his memoir, so I will associate Professor O'Sullivan with Decision Points suggests President Bush has not read key fact findings on Iraq carefully (actually, the intelligence correctly indicated an active WMD program in violation of UNSCR 687 that was markedly compatible with Saddam's terrorism).
I am writing to you as the editors of Hand-off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama to criticize Hand-off for missing essential lessons of Iraq due to misconceiving the Iraq issue. My context is Mr. Hadley's introductions and the "Iraq", "Reconstruction and Stabilization Operations", "Freedom Agenda", "War of Ideas", "Dismantling al Qaeda", "Institutionalizing the War on Terror", and "Counterproliferation Policy" memoranda and postscripts.
To be clear, I am not criticizing the institutional adaptations learned from the Iraq intervention that are recounted in Hand-off except where "lessons learned" conflict with an essential lesson. I agree that the competitive adaptive lessons of Iraq should be instituted by President Bush's successors to upgrade American leadership for the 9/11 era like the Eisenhower administration applied the much harsher lessons of the Korea intervention to upgrade American leadership for the Cold War.
Hand-off reinforces that the constructive lessons of Iraq have been undermined as the fruit of a poisoned tree by the prevailing false narrative that OIF was unjustified in the first place. Advocating the constructive lessons of Iraq requires you to clarify OIF's justification as the foundational premise. However, Hand-off does not correct the false narrative of the Iraq Syndrome and is missing essential lessons of Iraq, which undermines your advocacy of the competitive adaptive lessons of Iraq.
For the foundational step of clarifying OIF's justification, I recommend that you propagate the substance of my Critical notes on the UK Iraq Inquiry Chilcot report. Improve and build on my work; make the matter your own. Why the Chilcot report? Because Chilcot is a primary embodiment of the Iraq Syndrome in America as well as in Britain. Therefore, interrogation of the Chilcot report is an efficient focal point to begin the public correction of the Iraq Syndrome's false narrative. Targeting Chilcot as their representative should mitigate the whack-a-mole challenge posed by the expert consensus propagating the Iraq Syndrome.
Once you have clarified OIF's justification as the foundational premise, I recommend that you apply these essential lessons of Iraq:
The Iraq Syndrome is a pandemic. Think of the hard-won strategic gains squandered and compounding toll from the deviations on Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya that the Obama administration made in accordance with the Iraq Syndrome. Treat it like a disease. Your rigorous, vigorous, and continuous clarification of OIF's justification to the public is needed until the degenerative Iraq Syndrome has been eradicated in the politics and purged as a policy premise, and its proponents have been held to account. These essential lessons and Hand-off's competitive adaptive lessons need to displace the false framing of OIF's constructive lessons and achievements including post-Saddam Iraq itself as the 'fruit of a poisoned tree', which has corrupted our politics and misguided our policy.
To explain why you are needed to publicly fight the Iraq Syndrome underlying the paradigm shift from American leadership of the free world, see Regarding pundits and David Brooks's "Saving the System".
The counterinsurgency "surge" is a contemporary case study of resolute leadership, resilient mission, and adaptation in competition that should be taught in government and academia as the proven formula for US military success. It is not a new formula, but the American leader of the free world needed to relearn it, and President Bush did that for us.
The proper analogue for OIF is not the Vietnam intervention, as Professor O'Sullivan suggests in her postscript to "Iraq". Rather, it is the Korea intervention, as Mr. Hadley suggests in his introduction for "Interventions and Stabilization". Like Korea and the Cold War, the crucible of Iraq produced key institutional and policy correctives that should upgrade American leadership for the 9/11 era. My discussion of OIF as a needed corrective in the OIF FAQ retrospective #americanprimacy section complements Hand-off.
Throw out the Powell Doctrine. Excerpt from my Review of "The Long Shadow of the Iraq War: Lessons and Legacies Twenty Years Later" by Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Linda Robinson:
"Adopt the Powell Doctrine" is exactly the wrong lesson from Iraq. The Powell Doctrine positively influenced Saddam's choice to breach the Gulf War ceasefire, thus causing the Gulf War to resume.
...
Iraq shows us that the self-limiting formula of the Powell Doctrine undermines our ability to deter adversaries, match capability to need, and solve problems in the global arena. The United States should not handicap itself as a competitor with the inherent incompetence and vulnerability of the Powell Doctrine. The constructive lesson of Iraq is that the American leader of the free world should seek practical and political mastery of all relevant forms of competition, including counterinsurgency, in order to competently and confidently champion our interests across the spectrum of the global arena, and deter or counteract our adversaries who might otherwise exploit the Powell Doctrine to advance inimical interests and deter the US.
...
Iraq shows us that the self-limiting formula of the Powell Doctrine undermines our ability to deter adversaries, match capability to need, and solve problems in the global arena. The United States should not handicap itself as a competitor with the inherent incompetence and vulnerability of the Powell Doctrine. The constructive lesson of Iraq is that the American leader of the free world should seek practical and political mastery of all relevant forms of competition, including counterinsurgency, in order to competently and confidently champion our interests across the spectrum of the global arena, and deter or counteract our adversaries who might otherwise exploit the Powell Doctrine to advance inimical interests and deter the US.
Hand-off's characterization of the OIF occupation and peace operations as an ad hoc decision after the regime change, "the US-UK coalition reluctantly took on the responsibilities of an occupying power" (O'Sullivan) "once the Saddam Hussein regime was toppled" (Gerson, Wehner), is incorrect. To clarify, see the OIF FAQ answer to "Was the invasion of Iraq perceived to be a nation-building effort" and the pre-war planning record published by Douglas Feith. The Clinton administration and Congress officially committed the US to a post-Saddam nation-building role in 1998, which had been implicit since the HW Bush administration and Congress committed the US to enforcing UNSCR 688 in 1991. The 2002 AUMF and concurrent presidential statements upheld the 1998 commitment to post-Saddam nation-building, and the initial post-war plan for Iraq was state of the art, "built on the organizations and processes used in more than a dozen overseas operations conducted between 1990 and 2001" (Hooker).
OIF's post-war difficulty was not due to a late ad hoc decision to take on the responsibilities of an occupying power or poor planning. Rather, it was caused by the extreme growth since 1991 of Saddam's terrorism, which constituted the pre-assembled Saddamist insurgency, and Saddam's human rights abuses, which were behind the "unanticipated collapse of order" (O'Sullivan), that caught us by surprise. Excerpt from American Enterprise Institute panel discussion, "The Iraq War Series: The Conduct of the War":
Jack Keane:
The fact of the matter is, we were dealing with an enemy force that Saddam Hussein had before the invasion, that planned to do what he was doing. And we were conducting likely the most formidable insurgency the West has ever encountered.
Why am I saying that? Human capital is usually an issue for insurgents. Sometimes they get it outside. But human capital, they had somewhere in the neighborhood, if you add up the Fedayeen, the Ba’ath Party militia, special Republican Guard, excuse me, and [inaudible 01:10:58] intelligence service, the numbers 130,000. I’m not suggesting that we’re all involved. But I’m suggesting to you that was a good place to start. Remember, this is Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-based insurgency to start with. He had an unlimited amount of money, billions and billions of dollars. Normally, in the typical Mao based insurgency, they’re starving for what? For capital. They had an unlimited amount of money. They had unlimited amount of arms and ammunition. ... And what else did they have? Well, hell, they ran the country for 35 years, and they wanted to take it back.
The fact of the matter is, we were dealing with an enemy force that Saddam Hussein had before the invasion, that planned to do what he was doing. And we were conducting likely the most formidable insurgency the West has ever encountered.
Why am I saying that? Human capital is usually an issue for insurgents. Sometimes they get it outside. But human capital, they had somewhere in the neighborhood, if you add up the Fedayeen, the Ba’ath Party militia, special Republican Guard, excuse me, and [inaudible 01:10:58] intelligence service, the numbers 130,000. I’m not suggesting that we’re all involved. But I’m suggesting to you that was a good place to start. Remember, this is Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-based insurgency to start with. He had an unlimited amount of money, billions and billions of dollars. Normally, in the typical Mao based insurgency, they’re starving for what? For capital. They had an unlimited amount of money. They had unlimited amount of arms and ammunition. ... And what else did they have? Well, hell, they ran the country for 35 years, and they wanted to take it back.
That understanding of OIF's post-war difficulty informs two essential lessons:
First, when a national security threat is diagnosed like the Saddam problem was diagnosed in 1990-1991, it needs to be solved as soon as possible, not allowed to fester for years while accruing harm by the malfeasor and driving up the cost and difficulty of solving the problem. The HW Bush administration understood that Iraqi regime change was needed to solve the Saddam problem yet kicked the can down the road. By 1998, the Clinton administration and Congress also concluded that the Saddam regime would not comply volitionally and regime change was needed to bring Iraq into compliance with the Gulf War ceasefire terms. They finished the set of law, policy, and precedent with Operation Desert Fox that defined Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet instead of solving the problem with ODF, they kicked the can down the road with an ad hoc 'containment' that was not real. The Saddam problem kept festering—"far worse" (UN Special Rapporteur on Iraq, 18MAR04) than we knew—until 9/11 reevaluated "the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists...who travel the world among us unnoticed" (President Clinton, 17FEB98), which finally compelled Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441).
Knowing what we know now about Saddam's terrorism and corruption of Iraqi society versus the US and UN peacemaking capability of 2003, the only way to mitigate OIF's post-war difficulty would have been an earlier regime change before the Saddam problem outgrew the US and UN peacemaking capability. If the Iraqi regime change had not happened in 2003, then the later we delayed it, the more that the Saddam problem would have festered and outgrown the US and UN peacemaking capability, and driven up the cost and difficulty of solving the problem. The Saddam regime "never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC’s resolutions" (ISG): The Iraqi regime change should have happened with Operation Desert Fox when President Clinton determined, "Iraq has abused its final chance", if not earlier.
Second, the standard of anticipatory preemptive or prophylactic planning in Richard Hooker's "Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations" postscript lesson is ahistorical and unrealistic for any kind of real competition, let alone martial contests. For OIF in particular, the standard is impossible because the US, UK, and international community had severely underestimated the growth of Saddam's terrorism and human rights abuses since 1991. The UNSCR 678 enforcers simply did not know how much Saddam's Iraq had festered. The initial post-war plan was reasonably calibrated to the prevalent conception of Iraqi society. The problem is that conception matched an early 1990s Iraq and maybe a mid 1990s Iraq, but it was obsolete by 2003.
Which brings us back to the essential lesson of President Bush's resolute leadership, resilient mission, and adaptation in competition as the proven formula for US military success. The need to adjust to deficient knowledge of an adversary or situation is normal in US military history and for competition in general. Dr. Hooker's unrealistic standard of anticipatory preemptive or prophylactic planning is anti-competitive. The competitive lesson to take from OIF's post-war difficulty is the reminder to expect and embrace setback and adjustment as a normal competitive pattern. In historical context, the setbacks in OIF that compelled the COIN "surge" are moderate compared to the setbacks, from Valley Forge to Fredericksburg to Kasserine Pass to Chosin Reservoir, that compelled greater adjustments in other US military successes.
Finally, to revive the political will to repair the strategic US relationship with Iraq, make the public understand that Saddamists are the root cause of the death, dysfunction, and suffering in Iraq before, during, and after OIF. Our intervention with Iraq has been the necessary cure for the Saddamist cancer in all its forms, Saddam regime, Saddamist insurgency, Saddamist ISIS, and also for the opportunistic disease of Iran in Iraq. Excerpt from my "Review of "The Long Shadow of the Iraq War: Lessons and Legacies Twenty Years Later"" by Linda Robinson:
The OIF invasion led by US forces was necessary to stop the Saddam regime's "systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in an all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror" (UNCHR) and "predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq" (IPP).
Unfortunately, Saddam and his terrorists chose to convert their sectarian, terrorist, genocidal regime to the Saddamist insurgency that viciously attacked the Iraqi people like the Saddamists ruled Iraq. Once more, the counterinsurgency "surge" led by US forces was necessary to stop the Saddamist insurgency.
It should have been crystal clear by then that Iraq needed US forces to stay long-term like US forces have stayed in Germany, Japan, and Korea. But President Obama callously, or cruelly, removed the peace operations anyway. Saddamists accepted Obama's gift opportunity, reformed inside the degeneration of the Arab Spring, and attacked Iraq again. But this time, with Iraq stripped of the US forces that had twice proven necessary to stop the Saddamists, their "multinational terrorist organization ... took over most of the country".
...
After a deadly delay, President Obama belatedly honored the US-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement by sending US forces back in 2014 to stop the Saddamists for a third time. However, Obama did not restore the presence of US forces that should have secured the fundamental space, anchored the bilateral relationship, and enabled the progressive learning curve of everything else for the good of Iraq's generational development. Instead, Iran accepted Obama's gift opportunity and has occupied the vital gap that Obama left behind.
Unfortunately, Saddam and his terrorists chose to convert their sectarian, terrorist, genocidal regime to the Saddamist insurgency that viciously attacked the Iraqi people like the Saddamists ruled Iraq. Once more, the counterinsurgency "surge" led by US forces was necessary to stop the Saddamist insurgency.
It should have been crystal clear by then that Iraq needed US forces to stay long-term like US forces have stayed in Germany, Japan, and Korea. But President Obama callously, or cruelly, removed the peace operations anyway. Saddamists accepted Obama's gift opportunity, reformed inside the degeneration of the Arab Spring, and attacked Iraq again. But this time, with Iraq stripped of the US forces that had twice proven necessary to stop the Saddamists, their "multinational terrorist organization ... took over most of the country".
...
After a deadly delay, President Obama belatedly honored the US-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement by sending US forces back in 2014 to stop the Saddamists for a third time. However, Obama did not restore the presence of US forces that should have secured the fundamental space, anchored the bilateral relationship, and enabled the progressive learning curve of everything else for the good of Iraq's generational development. Instead, Iran accepted Obama's gift opportunity and has occupied the vital gap that Obama left behind.
I may follow up this e-mail with a critique of Hal Brands and Melvyn Leffler's commentaries.
Please clarify the Iraq issue to the public, share my criticism of Hand-off with your colleagues, and apply these essential lessons of Iraq to reform the policy of the United States, our allies, and the international community. I invite your critical feedback. If you have questions about my work, please ask.
---------------
PREFACE: This e-mail augments the Nov 21, 2025 at 2:30 AM e-mail (above) to Mr. Hadley, Professor Feaver, Professor Inboden, and Professor O'Sullivan.
from: [Eric LC]
to: [Stephen Hadley], [Peter Feaver], [William Inboden], [Meghan O'Sullivan]
cc: [Chloe Holt]
date: Dec 3, 2025, 12:38 AM
subject: Augmentation of "Hand-off misses essential lessons of Iraq due to misconceiving the Iraq issue"
Mr. Hadley, Professor Feaver, Professor Inboden, and Professor O'Sullivan,
Once again, I clarify and relitigate the Iraq issue at Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ using the law and facts that define the Iraq issue.
I am writing to you with an augmentation of the "The proper analogue for OIF...is the Korea intervention" and "Throw out the Powell Doctrine" essential lessons in my Nov 21, 2025 at 2:30 AM e-mail
The combined lesson is that Operation Iraqi Freedom was compelled by the competitively deficient American leadership of the free world during the 1990s, most importantly in the post-Cold War baseline paradigmatic UNSCR 678 enforcement. The hard-won contest between the OIF peace operations and Saddamist insurgency in the crucible of Iraq was a needed corrective that reset the baseline for effective US deterrence and competitively sufficient American leadership of the free world for the 9/11 era.
Upholding OIF in the politics is necessary to establish the political frame that is needed to build the competitive Iraq-based institutional adaptations that you advocate in Hand-off. To that end, I endorse Michael Kozak's "Impatience is the enemy" and "Learning how to succeed" essential lessons in the "Freedom Agenda" memorandum—you should renew them to the public.
The problem is Hand-off is either vague about or misconceives the operative context, elements, and stakes and progressive continuum of the 1991 to 2003 UNSCR 678 enforcement. Therefore, Hand-off fails to present the key question that the Bush administration needed to answer in order to reform American leadership of the free world upon the wake-up call of 9/11: Why did Saddam choose "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire versus the United States-led UNSCR 678 enforcement for casus belli when he could and should have switched off the UNSCR 678 enforcement at any point between 1991 and 2003 by simply fulfilling the ceasefire conditions that Iraq agreed to in 1991?
The answer is Saddam chose to breach the Gulf War ceasefire because of the Vietnam Syndrome, which debilitated American leadership of the free world during the 1990s: Saddam interpreted from the pattern of Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Fox stopping short of Iraqi regime change, along with other telling events such as Operation Restore Hope, that the United States was a paper tiger. (The answer is also that Saddam chose to breach because of his accomplices on the United Nations Security Council in France, Russia, and China, plus Germany. They should have been censured for "The [Saddam] Regime’s strategy was successful to the point where sitting members of the Security Council were actively violating the resolutions passed by the Security Council" (Iraq Survey Group), but they were enabled by their corruption of the Security Council instead.)
I discuss this in the Hadley excerpt, but it is worth reiterating that Mr. Hadley is only partially right that deposing the Saddam regime validated US deterrence. The validation from OIF's major combat operations was conditional. The true test of US deterrence vis-à-vis Iraq in the context of the Vietnam Syndrome was whether American leadership would stand fast against the Saddamist insurgency and OIF's peace operations would defend post-Saddam Iraq at the analogous point that an earlier generation of American leaders failed to defend South Vietnam.
We did. Under President Bush's leadership, the United States kicked the Vietnam Syndrome in Iraq and thereby reset the baseline for effective US deterrence and competitively sufficient American leadership of the free world for the 9/11 era. It was essential. The next step was for President Bush's successor to build on the constructive lessons of Iraq by following the Eisenhower precedent. But Senator Clinton and Senator McCain failed to win the 2008 presidential election. And instead of following the Eisenhower precedent, President Obama radically deviated with Iraq to restore the debilitating Vietnam Syndrome and implant the degenerative Iraq Syndrome. The Iraq Syndrome-based [slander] of Vice President Cheney on his recent passing shows that the problem is not going away on its own.
I encourage you to read the original posts of the topical excerpts.
Excerpt from my Review of Hal Brands and Peter Feaver's "Lessons from the Iraq War":
Brands, Feaver:
See the #americanprimacy section of "10 year anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom: thoughts".
The wider importance of the Iraq issue boils down to elementary political science: American leadership since World War 2 has been based on deterrence sufficient to effect compliance. Deterrence sufficient to effect compliance is based on the credible threat and use of force.
At the dawn of the post-Cold War era, the US-led enforcement of Iraq's compliance with the UNSCR 660 series in the Gulf War set the baseline for the liberal international order. The subsequent US-led enforcement of Iraq's compliance with the purpose-designed Gulf War ceasefire threat-resolution measures was tantamount to the primary credibility test of post-Cold War American leadership. Thus, the "intransigence and defiance of the Iraqi regime" (Bush, 18MAR03) eroded the credibility of American leadership on the international stage as the HW Bush and Clinton administrations persistently failed to bring Iraq into its mandated compliance.
The prescription for "keeping America engaged and effective in a world where new dangers abound" is found by answering why Saddam chose "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) when he could and should have switched off the US-led enforcement at any time over the intervening decade-plus by simply fulfilling the Gulf War ceasefire conditions that Iraq had accepted in 1991. Instead, Saddam disdained American leadership enough to breach through Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441).
"Understanding the limits of U.S. power" lays out two paths: Either accept limits of U.S. power that fall short of real competitive American leadership of the free world. Or, work to expand those limits until they are sure and strong enough to truly champion pax Americana.
America's choice following the Iraq War is essentially the same choice we faced following the Korean War. As inflection points of modern American leadership, the Korean War is the analogue of the Iraq War.
If America follows the Iraq War in line with the Korean War precedent, then "lessons from the Iraq War" will set the baseline for upgraded American leadership that's fit to champion pax Americana. The alternative is accepting OIF stigma as the upgraded v2.0 heir to the debilitating Vietnam syndrome.
Understanding the limits of U.S. power and the dangers inherent in major military interventions — something that supporters of the war failed to do — is a prerequisite to keeping America engaged and effective in a world where new dangers abound.
... Vietnam haunted U.S. foreign policy for decades and arguably still casts its shadow to this day.
... Vietnam haunted U.S. foreign policy for decades and arguably still casts its shadow to this day.
See the #americanprimacy section of "10 year anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom: thoughts".
The wider importance of the Iraq issue boils down to elementary political science: American leadership since World War 2 has been based on deterrence sufficient to effect compliance. Deterrence sufficient to effect compliance is based on the credible threat and use of force.
At the dawn of the post-Cold War era, the US-led enforcement of Iraq's compliance with the UNSCR 660 series in the Gulf War set the baseline for the liberal international order. The subsequent US-led enforcement of Iraq's compliance with the purpose-designed Gulf War ceasefire threat-resolution measures was tantamount to the primary credibility test of post-Cold War American leadership. Thus, the "intransigence and defiance of the Iraqi regime" (Bush, 18MAR03) eroded the credibility of American leadership on the international stage as the HW Bush and Clinton administrations persistently failed to bring Iraq into its mandated compliance.
The prescription for "keeping America engaged and effective in a world where new dangers abound" is found by answering why Saddam chose "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) when he could and should have switched off the US-led enforcement at any time over the intervening decade-plus by simply fulfilling the Gulf War ceasefire conditions that Iraq had accepted in 1991. Instead, Saddam disdained American leadership enough to breach through Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441).
"Understanding the limits of U.S. power" lays out two paths: Either accept limits of U.S. power that fall short of real competitive American leadership of the free world. Or, work to expand those limits until they are sure and strong enough to truly champion pax Americana.
America's choice following the Iraq War is essentially the same choice we faced following the Korean War. As inflection points of modern American leadership, the Korean War is the analogue of the Iraq War.
If America follows the Iraq War in line with the Korean War precedent, then "lessons from the Iraq War" will set the baseline for upgraded American leadership that's fit to champion pax Americana. The alternative is accepting OIF stigma as the upgraded v2.0 heir to the debilitating Vietnam syndrome.
Excerpt from my Critical comments on "The Iraq War Series: Operation Iraqi Freedom" (AEI panel, 27MAR23):
Stephen Hadley:
If true US deterrence depends on a universal belief that "the United States was going to invade them" is a viable option for the US to bring rogue actors like Saddam into compliance with essential mandates, that means the COIN adjustment in response to the "loss of credibility and leverage, because of our failure to stabilize Iraq...we paid an enormous price for that" was a vital corrective for US foreign policy.
Why? Because occupation and peace operations are an inseparable part of the invasion sequence, and guerilla insurgency like North Vietnam used versus South Vietnam or the Saddamists used versus post-Saddam Iraq is a standard strategy versus "foreign military occupation". If we're lucky, the enemy may not resort to it. But we can never discount the possibility, which automatically reduces our "credibility and leverage" if we're implicitly averse to competing against an insurgency. For example, Saddam chose to breach the Gulf War ceasefire because his risk assessment was that the US was bluffing and would not take on the risk of a hard costly occupation. So where the OIF invasion increased our deterrence leverage in the moment, that was conditional: The real international test for US deterrence was always whether the US would stand fast when faced with a hard costly occupation and thereby prove to the world that the Vietnam Syndrome was cured.
In order for US deterrence to become genuinely competitive, we needed to prove to ourselves, our allies, and the watching world that when the Saddamist insurgency knocked down the OIF peace operations and we lost the initiative, we would get back up, adjust practically, stay resolute politically, and stand fast to win the contest.
The US passed the vital leadership test with the COIN "surge", which should have cured the Vietnam Syndrome to establish true US deterrence, like the US did when we passed the much harder leadership test of the Korean War. Instead ...
Stephen Hadley:
... President Obama ripped up the vital leadership test that the US passed with the COIN "surge" by contravening both the US-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement and the cardinal precedent of US leadership with Germany, Japan, and Korea in order to engineer an irresponsible exit from Iraq that not only restored the Vietnam Syndrome but boosted the disease by entrenching the degenerative Iraq Syndrome.
I discuss the vital corrective aspect of OIF and Obama's deviation in the OIF FAQ retrospective #americanprimacy section.
And on the opportunity cost, let me just say a word about that. People forget that because of the effectiveness of those operations, Muammar Qaddafi in Libya voluntarily in 2003, gives up his weapons of mass destruction. The Iranians, we learned, subsequently suspended most of their Iranian covert weapons development and enrichment program. Why? Because they thought the United States was going to invade them. They were going to be next. We worked through diplomacy. We get, in September 2005, an agreement with the North Koreans where they’re going to give up their nuclear program altogether. Working with three European countries, we get a similar agreement with Iran in 2003 and 2004.
And because I would say in part, because of our loss of credibility and leverage, because of our failure to stabilize Iraq, both of those countries walk out of those agreements, and we were never able to get them back into them. So we paid an enormous price for that.
And because I would say in part, because of our loss of credibility and leverage, because of our failure to stabilize Iraq, both of those countries walk out of those agreements, and we were never able to get them back into them. So we paid an enormous price for that.
If true US deterrence depends on a universal belief that "the United States was going to invade them" is a viable option for the US to bring rogue actors like Saddam into compliance with essential mandates, that means the COIN adjustment in response to the "loss of credibility and leverage, because of our failure to stabilize Iraq...we paid an enormous price for that" was a vital corrective for US foreign policy.
Why? Because occupation and peace operations are an inseparable part of the invasion sequence, and guerilla insurgency like North Vietnam used versus South Vietnam or the Saddamists used versus post-Saddam Iraq is a standard strategy versus "foreign military occupation". If we're lucky, the enemy may not resort to it. But we can never discount the possibility, which automatically reduces our "credibility and leverage" if we're implicitly averse to competing against an insurgency. For example, Saddam chose to breach the Gulf War ceasefire because his risk assessment was that the US was bluffing and would not take on the risk of a hard costly occupation. So where the OIF invasion increased our deterrence leverage in the moment, that was conditional: The real international test for US deterrence was always whether the US would stand fast when faced with a hard costly occupation and thereby prove to the world that the Vietnam Syndrome was cured.
In order for US deterrence to become genuinely competitive, we needed to prove to ourselves, our allies, and the watching world that when the Saddamist insurgency knocked down the OIF peace operations and we lost the initiative, we would get back up, adjust practically, stay resolute politically, and stand fast to win the contest.
The US passed the vital leadership test with the COIN "surge", which should have cured the Vietnam Syndrome to establish true US deterrence, like the US did when we passed the much harder leadership test of the Korean War. Instead ...
Stephen Hadley:
I would have to say that we came up with . . . the so-called endless war in Iraq ended for the United States in 2011 when President Obama took out all of our troops. That had some very adverse consequences, which we can talk about. Failure to attend to what was happening in Syria as it descended into civil war, had serious consequences. So that al Qaeda regroups as ISIS in Syria, and in 2014 comes in and takes 40 percent of Iraq. And in some sense defeats all the good that came out of the surge.
... President Obama ripped up the vital leadership test that the US passed with the COIN "surge" by contravening both the US-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement and the cardinal precedent of US leadership with Germany, Japan, and Korea in order to engineer an irresponsible exit from Iraq that not only restored the Vietnam Syndrome but boosted the disease by entrenching the degenerative Iraq Syndrome.
I discuss the vital corrective aspect of OIF and Obama's deviation in the OIF FAQ retrospective #americanprimacy section.
Excerpt from the OIF FAQ retrospective #postwar section:
The Army's shortcomings in the immediate post-war were due to an institutional mindset deeply rooted in the fall-out of the Vietnam War, exemplified by the Powell Doctrine, that was averse to nation-building occupation. The resulting Pentagon culture was critically misaligned with White House policy on Iraq where the Gulf War ceasefire, evinced by the breadth of the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) that was enforced under US law and President HW Bush's path-setting policy decisions at the outset, effectively required Iraqi regime change — with or without Saddam staying in power. Yet Saddam felt uncompelled to comply as mandated with the Gulf War ceasefire because he interpreted from his 1991 Operation Desert Storm and 1998 Operation Desert Fox experiences that the US was bluffing. Due to the self-imposed limitations typified by the Powell Doctrine, Saddam believed the US was unwilling to enforce the terms of ceasefire with a credible threat of regime change, thus the chief enforcer of the Gulf War ceasefire could be defeated.
In effect, the Powell Doctrine represented an obvious design flaw in American leadership that provided a foundational building block for Saddam, his allies, and other like-minded actors to develop a template for effectively rendering American-led international enforcement obsolete.
Implicating the Powell Doctrine, GEN Petraeus again: “If we are going to fight future wars, they’re going to be very similar to Iraq,” he says, adding that this was why “we have to get it right in Iraq”.
...
I agree with GEN Petraeus's prognostication — policymakers must embrace the Iraq intervention. I hope the Army has learned to overcome the Vietnam War trauma and retire the debilitating Powell Doctrine for good. It's critical for the military to reform its institutional mindset by ingraining the hard-won lessons of Iraq. If the Powell Doctrine persists despite the clear lessons of OIF and the COIN "Surge", then avid competitors will continue to exploit the Vietnam War stigma and add its purposeful strategic successor, OIF stigma, to undermine American leadership of the free world.
In effect, the Powell Doctrine represented an obvious design flaw in American leadership that provided a foundational building block for Saddam, his allies, and other like-minded actors to develop a template for effectively rendering American-led international enforcement obsolete.
Implicating the Powell Doctrine, GEN Petraeus again: “If we are going to fight future wars, they’re going to be very similar to Iraq,” he says, adding that this was why “we have to get it right in Iraq”.
...
I agree with GEN Petraeus's prognostication — policymakers must embrace the Iraq intervention. I hope the Army has learned to overcome the Vietnam War trauma and retire the debilitating Powell Doctrine for good. It's critical for the military to reform its institutional mindset by ingraining the hard-won lessons of Iraq. If the Powell Doctrine persists despite the clear lessons of OIF and the COIN "Surge", then avid competitors will continue to exploit the Vietnam War stigma and add its purposeful strategic successor, OIF stigma, to undermine American leadership of the free world.
Excerpt from the OIF FAQ retrospective #americanprimacy section:
The Gulf War ceasefire terms were purpose-designed to resolve Saddam's manifold threat established with the Gulf War. The scope of the ceasefire terms meant that enforcing Iraq's mandated compliance resonated beyond the 4 corners of the Saddam problem or even the Iraq intervention itself. In 1991, at the dawn of the post-Cold War, the Gulf War ceasefire was invested with all the essential international norms, including strict aggression, disarmament, human rights, and terrorism-related mandates, and vital enforcement principles that were required to reify the aspirational "rules" of the post-Cold War world order.
Due to the historical context, threats and interests at stake, comprehensive spectrum of the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441), model enforcement procedure, and US-led UN-based structure, the UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement was tantamount to the flagship and litmus test of the US-led post-Cold War liberal international order.
In other words, the resolution of Saddam's probation with Iraq's mandated compliance per the Gulf War ceasefire represented the primary test case for US-led international enforcement with a readily measured pass/fail gauge. The paradigmatic set of international norms that defined Iraq's ceasefire obligations was enforced with a clear UN-mandated compliance standard and a strict US-led compliance process. Iraq's mandated compliance set the gold standard for enforcing post-Cold War liberal international order, whereas Saddam's noncompliance risked a model failure for US-led enforcement of the liberal international order, a theme that permeated the US law and policy on Iraq through the HW Bush, Clinton, and Bush administrations.
Under the avid scrutiny of our competitors, who were also Saddam's accomplices, the success or failure of American leadership to "bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (P.L. 105-235) would reveal the real-world viability of the post-Cold War "Pax Americana" rule set and American leadership of the free world.
The contest was hard, but the US passed the primary leadership test with Iraq.
As such, the Iraq intervention for the 9/11 era, analogous to the Korea intervention for the Cold War, should have reset the US strategic baseline needed to enforce liberal world order. However, at the same time that the US and its allies had successfully enforced Iraq's mandated compliance and thereby proven the mettle of American leadership of the free world, President Obama chose to abandon the hard-earned position and fundamentally change the course of American leadership.
Due to the historical context, threats and interests at stake, comprehensive spectrum of the "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441), model enforcement procedure, and US-led UN-based structure, the UNSCR 660-series compliance enforcement was tantamount to the flagship and litmus test of the US-led post-Cold War liberal international order.
In other words, the resolution of Saddam's probation with Iraq's mandated compliance per the Gulf War ceasefire represented the primary test case for US-led international enforcement with a readily measured pass/fail gauge. The paradigmatic set of international norms that defined Iraq's ceasefire obligations was enforced with a clear UN-mandated compliance standard and a strict US-led compliance process. Iraq's mandated compliance set the gold standard for enforcing post-Cold War liberal international order, whereas Saddam's noncompliance risked a model failure for US-led enforcement of the liberal international order, a theme that permeated the US law and policy on Iraq through the HW Bush, Clinton, and Bush administrations.
Under the avid scrutiny of our competitors, who were also Saddam's accomplices, the success or failure of American leadership to "bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (P.L. 105-235) would reveal the real-world viability of the post-Cold War "Pax Americana" rule set and American leadership of the free world.
The contest was hard, but the US passed the primary leadership test with Iraq.
As such, the Iraq intervention for the 9/11 era, analogous to the Korea intervention for the Cold War, should have reset the US strategic baseline needed to enforce liberal world order. However, at the same time that the US and its allies had successfully enforced Iraq's mandated compliance and thereby proven the mettle of American leadership of the free world, President Obama chose to abandon the hard-earned position and fundamentally change the course of American leadership.
I will end this e-mail with my third piece of counsel to Professor Feaver and Hal Brands after I reviewed their 20JUN19 National Review article:
3. Failure sucks, but setback-and-adjustment is the normal competitive pattern in the political arena as any other. If your aspirational standard is pax Americana, then you don't have a choice: Upholding the sufficient corrective ethical adaptive resolute American leadership that crystallized in the crucible of Iraq under President Bush is essential for the viability of your preferred course.
We've risen before to the frightening challenges of a new era. American history didn't start (over) with Vietnam. If our forebears could constructively reform "the limits of U.S. power" upon the epic symphony of horrific disasters that was the Korean War under the avid eye of a vigorous ascendant Communism, then we can certainly follow their precedent upon the comparative cakewalk of the Iraq War "in a world where new dangers abound".
But to get us there, you and your school of policy first need to compete for predominance over the opposing school of policy. Thus far in the political contest, you've inexplicably given the opposing school free rein with an otherwise readily correctable, blatantly false narrative of OIF, which they've ruthlessly exploited to rise over and methodically degrade your school. You need to stop that.
See Regarding pundits and David Brooks's "Saving the System".
We've risen before to the frightening challenges of a new era. American history didn't start (over) with Vietnam. If our forebears could constructively reform "the limits of U.S. power" upon the epic symphony of horrific disasters that was the Korean War under the avid eye of a vigorous ascendant Communism, then we can certainly follow their precedent upon the comparative cakewalk of the Iraq War "in a world where new dangers abound".
But to get us there, you and your school of policy first need to compete for predominance over the opposing school of policy. Thus far in the political contest, you've inexplicably given the opposing school free rein with an otherwise readily correctable, blatantly false narrative of OIF, which they've ruthlessly exploited to rise over and methodically degrade your school. You need to stop that.
See Regarding pundits and David Brooks's "Saving the System".
As always, I invite your critical feedback. If you have questions about my work, please ask.
PREFACE: from: [Eric LC] to: [Juan Zarate], [Zack Cooper], date: Dec 2, 2025, 12:35 PM subject: Clarify the Iraq issue to counter the terrorist narrative Mr. Zarate, Dr. Cooper, [Ms. Pandith,] and Mr. Rasmussen, I clarify and relitigate the Iraq issue at Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ using the law and facts that define the Iraq issue. I am writing to you in response to this part of your postscript to "The Fight against al Qaeda" chapter in Hand-off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama: These fundamental approaches remain sound, even essential to success, particularly the focus on degrading the leadership of terrorist adversaries and eliminating their access to physical and financial safe haven. ... For example, the effort to go on the offensive and carry the fight to terrorist adversaries appears, even in hindsight, to have been the appropriate response to protect the American people and to keep them safe. At the same time, this forward-leaning, forward-deployed posture also contributed to a persistent and counterproductive narrative put forward by those same terrorist adversaries that the United States was engaged in indiscriminate violence against peaceful Muslim populations. While that narrative was not then and is not now an accurate reflection of American policy and strategy, it continues to fuel grievances and provide powerful motivation and inspiration to many thousands of potential extremists and terrorists around the world. Successive administrations have struggled to manage this narrative challenge and will continue to do so. The United States-led UNSCR 678 enforcement of the Gulf War ceasefire "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) was a seminal cornerstone of terrorist propaganda long before Operation Iraqi Freedom. The "persistent and counterproductive narrative put forward by those same terrorist adversaries that the United States was engaged in indiscriminate violence against peaceful Muslim populations" has been corroborated and much exacerbated by the false narrative propagated by Western leaders and pundits that OIF was unjustified and the cause of the actually Saddamist-caused harm to the Iraqi people, i.e., the degenerative Iraq Syndrome. Therefore, to counter the "persistent and counterproductive narrative put forward by those same terrorist adversaries", you need to clarify OIF's justification and the Saddamists' culpability to the public. The correction needed to happen a long time ago and therefore may no longer be sufficient by itself to solve the problem. Nonetheless, it continues to be a necessary premise to "manage this narrative challenge". For that purpose, I recommend that you propagate the substance of my critical examination of the UK Iraq Inquiry Chilcot report, Critical notes on the UK Iraq Inquiry Chilcot report. Improve and build on my work; make it your own. Why the Chilcot report? Because the Iraq Syndrome's false narrative needs to be eradicated in the politics and purged as a policy premise, and Chilcot is a primary embodiment of the Iraq Syndrome in America and around the world, as well as in Britain. Therefore, interrogation of the Chilcot report is an efficient focal point to begin the public correction of the Iraq Syndrome's false narrative. The Iraq Syndrome-based slander of Vice President Cheney on his recent passing reinforced that the problem is not going away on its own. Targeting Chilcot as their representative should mitigate the whack-a-mole challenge posed by the expert consensus propagating the Iraq Syndrome. In terms of "the focus on degrading the leadership of terrorist adversaries and eliminating their access to physical and financial safe haven", the Iraq intervention fully qualified. Casus belli, i.e., Iraq's "material breach" (UNSCR 1441) of the Gulf War ceasefire at Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), included the Saddam regime's UNSCR 687 terrorism violation which was severely underestimated. The post-war Iraqi Perspectives Project investigation discovered the Saddam regime was a world-leading terrorist organization that included "considerable operational overlap" (IPP) with the al Qaeda network. Saddamists constituted AQI and ISIS. I look forward to your feedback. If you have questions about my work, please ask.
