E. J. Dionne Jr. argues in today's Washington Post that the real reason for the invasion of Iraq was what he calls the Big Bang Theory. The United States ousted Saddam Hussein to shake things up in the Middle East.
Things have certainly been shaken up, but without the results that the Bush administration hoped to achieve. Dionne writes:
The case for reducing our commitment to Iraq in the interest of other and larger foreign policy purposes--has anyone noticed the growing mess in Afghanistan?--is built on a compelling proposition: that the administration made a huge bet on Iraq and it lost. American voters can decide to keep the gamble going, to risk more lives and money, and hope that something turns up. Or they can decide that this gamble will never deliver the winnings that those who took it on our behalf promised.
By late November of this year, the United States will have been at war in Iraq for as long as we were involved in World War II. Under those circumstances, the burden of proof should not be on those who argue for changing what we're doing. It should be on those who set a failed policy in motion and keep promising, despite the evidence, that it will somehow pay off if only we "stay the course."