Lessons

It's critical to learn lessons from history or you are doomed to repeat it. The Iraq War is an expensive lesson in what does and doesn't work in foreign policy. Our leaders need to take these lessons to heart so it never happens again:

1. Don't go to war on a false premise. Make sure you have irrefutable proof of a serious risk before committing our resources. This means hands-on, eyes-on proof rather than third hand testimony from dubious sources and satellite imagery which were both completely inaccurate.

2. It's very expensive and impractical to project power internationally for a protracted period of time. We have seen this in Vietnam and Iraq.

3. Think things through from beginning to end. What's the exit strategy?

4. Take the advice of proven combat veterans rather than ivory tower intellectuals with a foreign policy agenda which may not be realistic or aligned with the long-term interests of the American people.

5. This conflict was not about "freedom" It was about oil resources, power, and arrogance. Freedom and democracy are fantastic but must come up from within a country and cannot be effectively imposed by external forces.

6. Understand the culture and history of a foreign land. Don't try to impose your culture and history on it. This does not work.

7. Violence and war creates more violence and war in a disintegrating spiral. We would have made more friends and had less terrorism by avoiding this war and focusing on goodwill initiatives with Arabian countries.

8. When in doubt Congress needs to exercise it's rights to contravene the will of the President. The best government is of the people, by the people, and for the people. Putting too much decision-making power in the hands of one man seems to cause bad decisions. Only by a system of representative government and checks and balances can we avoid the inevitable human frailties. This insight was the crowning achievement of the framers of the constitution of the United States of America.

9. End Iraq War Now.org suggests Presidential candidates be offered optional military training to improve their knowledge and decision-making ability. It's challenging for someone with no military knowledge, experience, or training to effectively be commander in chief of the United States military. The experience of Iraq shows this can lead to poor decisions with poor results.

End Iraq War Now.org proposes that the military war colleges devise a one year course on war history, execution, and management that all candidates for president are requested to take as an optional pre-qualification credential for running for office. This could be taught on a part-time basis similar to an executive MBA program. It should include hands-on field experience. Our leaders need to learn the lessons of war: reasons, mistakes, what works, and what doesn't. The ultimate ends of this training should be to help them avoid bringing us into war unless absolutely necessary to defend our interests as a nation and to fight extremely efficient and effective wars if the benefits outweigh the costs.