Nearly four years after our country invaded and occupied Iraq, Americans are facing the painful truth that our nation has failed to achieve the Bush … - Anthony Zinni

We promised the Iraqi people freedom, democracy, security and a new and far better life.

When I joined the United States Marine Corps as an eighteen-year-old in 1961, I would have told you that wars are always decided entirely on the battlefield. That's where the generals win or lose. I retired in 2000 after four decades of service and multiple experiences in wars and military interventions. By then I had come to realize that there is more to it than that. Political decisions, intelligence estimates, strategies (or their absence), and many other non-battlefield components influenced outcomes to a far greater degree than that eighteen-year-old new Marine could have ever imagined. These off the battlefield components have become increasingly significant as each new intervention is attempted in today's complex world.

Yet, here we are, long and difficult years into that conflict,” ... “we still have not created the state we promised them. On the contrary, our costly and valiant efforts have produced an outcome our government did not predict or intend—a failed state spinning out of control into anarchy and civil war.