To COIN or Not? Foreign Policy: "A decade later, what lessons haven't we learned from the war in Iraq that we should?"
On March 19, it will have been 10 years since the United States invaded Iraq. Foreign Policy and the RAND Corporation teamed up to bring together many of the key players who launched, fought, analyzed, and executed the war, including everyone from Bush national security advisor Stephen Hadley and Gen. John Allen to Doug Feith, the controversial Bush Pentagon aide who advocated for the war in 2003, and Paul Pillar, the CIA analyst who later went public with his doubts. It quickly became clear that, even a decade later, every aspect of the war -- from its rationale through each phase of its execution -- remains hotly contested. We hope this unique conversation adds to the record of how we understand that war -- and in particular, what its consequences will be, and already are, for future American national security debates. We present here edited excerpts from the second part of discussion, on America's belated embrace of counterinsurgency in the Iraq war -- and whether and how the legacy of that shift will live on after the conflicts of the post-9/11 decade are long behind us. The session was moderated by FP's Susan Glasser, and you can find a full list of participants and their bios here. Further excerpts will appear on Foreign Policy tomorrow...