I agree. I think our involvement sped what was going to naturally happen. I also tend to think that our involvement is keeping the country from collapsing into complete anarchy (a la Somalia). And that it will speed eventual recovery into a functional state.
Of course, I may be an optimist, but that's not something I'm accused of very often. The fact that other nations in the area are conspiring to undermine the stability of Iraq is rather agitating to me. Though we've certainly got a good hand in the creation of the country, it's not exactly becoming a puppet state. Puppet states we don't take the time for mass elections, constitutions, etc. We just leave the current political system in place and make sure the dictator is friendly to us. IE, what happened to Iraq in the first place. :p
Regardless, I'm not sure what can be done. The borders are too large to secure against incursion. Either we spend alot of time and money working on surveillance and rapid response forces for border incursions, alot of time and money on intelligence and seek & destroy type missions after the enemy is inside Iraq, or alot of time and money on missions into neighboring countries to disrupt whoever's organizing the terrorists in the first place. I'd personally prefer the last, but that might end up doing more harm than good. But who am I to say we shouldn't blow the crap out of Syria.
