Policy Advisement on Efficacy of Nation Building in Iraq Dear Mr. President and Mr. Secretary of State,

After a decade to examine the consequences of America's decision to invade Iraq -- and engage in a massive nation building effort after successfully ousting the brutal Baath Party dictatorship of Saddam Hussein -- it has become abundantly clear that a war fought under false pretenses can never be productive in a geopolitical sense. As foreign policy scholars have observed in the wake of your predecessor's calamitous course of action, "President Bush said that our goal was a unified, democratic Iraq that could govern itself, sustain itself, defend itself, and serve as an ally in the 'War on Terror' & #8230; (but) it's apparent that no part of this goal has been achieved, and that the progress made toward them is fleeting" (Babbin, 2012). This is why the administration's current commitment to a more responsible foreign policy must remain of paramount importance, because as the power in the Middle East continues to crumble and recalibrate via revolution, the temptation to engage in further nation building efforts will inevitably intensify. The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria, caused by the merciless drive towards civil war by dictator Bashar al-Assad and his militant actions, has exposed the limitations of an American foreign policy apparatus motivated more by than compassion...

When the authoritarian regimes of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt were threatened by the revolutionary power of public protest, the State Department and other wings of the federal government offered indirect assistance and moral support to the dissenters, while effectively tabling the option of direct military intervention for fear of repeating the mistakes made in Iraq. Many international foreign policy experts agree with the prevailing assessment that "the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have diminished the United States' political will, military capability, and diplomatic credibility to conduct future humanitarian interventions" (Kurth 2005, 87), but American influence on the Egyptian and Libyan "Arab Springs" cannot be understated. The ultimate fall from power of both Gaddafi, who chose to turn his army against the Libyan people before being killed by an angry mob, and Mubarak, who sensibly sought refuge abroad, demonstrated that America is still capable of delivering democratic freedoms to those who seek it without pursuing a strategy premised on nation building; provided there is a clear strategic objective to be secured.
Of the many reasons to finally acknowledge the failures of America's nation building campaign in Iraq, perhaps the most compelling comes from our military's current state of strength and morale. Simply put, nation building within the confines of enemy territory for a duration of several years is an extremely demanding, high-risk/low-reward task to burden a volunteer army with, and the appalling rise in suicide rates among service members has widely been linked to the overextension of personnel that foreign policy directives based on nation building demand. As a prominent and vocal critic of American nation building observed of the Iraq War -- prior to…