I do genuinely think it was cheerleading for the Iraq War ("a moral obligation") that did for Craner. I even think a mea culpa a few years down the line could have saved him but he still insists it was a just war and that the men and women behind it were well intentioned honest and honourable.
oliver goodwin hershaw craner, to what extent do you concur with the following?:
1) the invasion of iraq itself was successful.
2) the failure of the invasion's aftermath was not an inherent inevitability of the decision to occupy, but rather the fault of poor management.
3) iraqi public opinion was initially supportive of the occupation and declined only due to mismanagement and the success of the insurgency. had a more effective counterinsurgency strategy (patreus post-2007 style) been taken from the outset, the occupation would have been far more successful.
4) the syrian civil war was per capita deadlier than it's iraq counterpart and didn't even produce the (albeit, far from perfect) democratic institutions the iraq invasion did. this indicates that light-touch interventions produce worse outcomes that more direct ones.
(if you feel frightened to comment with droid here, we can kindly ask him to leave this thread as a safe space in which you can develop your thoughts and ideas)