Readers React: Trying to rebuild Iraq was a mistake -- so was invading it

To the editor: Max Boot gets it right in saying that Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, who died recently, was wrong to advise the United States to leave quickly after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2013 and not stick around to rebuild the country. (“Ahmad Chalabi’s bad advice on nation-building in Iraq,” Op-Ed, Nov. 5)

But Boot conveniently omits the fact that he and his fellow neoconservatives bought into and propagated Chalabi’s advice to invade Iraq under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction and exporting democracy to the Middle East.

There is plenty of blame to go around for today’s mess in the Middle East, including the current administration. But it is arguably true that without the initial decision to invade Iraq, the current horrors throughout the Middle East would have been significantly less.

Will we ever learn that the concept of democracy must be born from within a country rather than imposed on it?

Elliott Mercer, Newport Beach

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To the editor: Boot states that “nation-building remains a painful subject in Washington” and glibly claims that “until we get over our aversion to it,” our national security will suffer. But what he (and others) even mean by nation-building remains unclear (and reeks of colonialism), and he admits that the United States spent eight years doing it in Iraq only to fail because of our “premature departure.”

Given that recent experience and the fact that the Marshall Plan was in operation for only four years, any “aversion” seems justified.

Walter Rusinek, Del Mar

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To the editor: Boot has it wrong. You don’t have to rebuild a country unless you destroy it.

Germany, Japan and South Korea (examples Boot cites as successfully rebuilt) were devastated by war. Iraq was not — not until U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer III destroyed Iraqi society with his program of “de-Baathification.”

The military won the war. The White House lost the peace.

Tom Keiser, Pasadena

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