Steve,
A fair question about what the endstate should have been. My question would be how do you balance the potential endstate you offer with the need to have someone to balance Iran and to prevent terrorists from operating from their soil? A weak and ineffectual Iraqi state (which isn't forgone conclusion, but I think a high probably in a punitive raid only scenario) would have issues doing either.
The whole essence of design vs. MDMP is that war is an inherently social phenomenon, and as such, is a complex environment where the flap of a butterfly's wings in one place can result in a storm in another, metaphorically speaking. Thus, while the OPLAN to remove the regime might fit well into the MDMP process, how to achieve an endstate that goes beyond regime removal and instead is regime change (to what regime? how? how long?) is something that falls under the rubric of design. This is the thrust of where I was going with Rocco.
A fair question about what the endstate should have been. My question would be how do you balance the potential endstate you offer with the need to have someone to balance Iran and to prevent terrorists from operating from their soil? A weak and ineffectual Iraqi state (which isn't forgone conclusion, but I think a high probably in a punitive raid only scenario) would have issues doing either.
The whole essence of design vs. MDMP is that war is an inherently social phenomenon, and as such, is a complex environment where the flap of a butterfly's wings in one place can result in a storm in another, metaphorically speaking. Thus, while the OPLAN to remove the regime might fit well into the MDMP process, how to achieve an endstate that goes beyond regime removal and instead is regime change (to what regime? how? how long?) is something that falls under the rubric of design. This is the thrust of where I was going with Rocco.
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