politics

This was always the conclusion. If the USA had wanted to truly succeed with the war on terror it would have required a mobilization and occupation akin to WW2. An army of hundreds of thousands if not millions. Decades of thorough occupation and nation building. They spent trillions of dollars on half-assing it because the entire project was imperial avarice and graft, endless waste, exclusive government contracts, nebulous goals. It also would have probably required kicking the shit out of the Saudis instead of the Baathists and leaving Iraq the fuck alone. Hell, probably not opening a second can of war while still in Afghanistan would have helped.

The USA was unwilling to actually try to win the war they started, which is a very stupid fucking move. It would have required rationing at home. Mass mobilization. Rebuilding of manufacturing capacities. Upgrading infrastructure. Nationalizing industries. A whole bevy of things that the neo cons and neo libs were unwilling to do. They tried their wunderwaffen just like the Nazis did, everything from fake bomb detectors to remotely piloted drones. Disastrous PR campaigns in the countries they invaded. Alienation of allies. Just a huge pile of short sighted shit that killed close to a million people and funneled trillions to the misanthropic war capitalists.

It wasn't just destined to fail. It was never meant to succeed on the terms it was sold on. It did succeed in making money because the USA is a corporate oligarchy. Like some disaster campaign from classical antiquity where some Roman senator's failson loses a few legions trying to advance his career except instead of some fancy lad brat it was a collection of multinational corporations and mercenary companies.

So yeah no shit it didn't work. Go look up how many allied soldiers were on the ground in France 20 days after D-Day. Compare it to the invasion of Iraq. Dubya, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hilldawg, Biden, Bolton, Eric motherfucking Prince, the list goes on. They should all be in the Hague.