Whenever I hear about the Iraq war on the "leftist" podcasts I listen to (other than Media Roots Radio) I always get hit with the usual suspects to blame - freakin' Hillary, the 'Democrat' party leadership (most rank-and-file congressional Ds voted against Iraq), or the uniquely evil super-genius Bush.
Why does no one ever dive into opinion polls at the time showing something like 70-80% of wypipo supported the invasion? It isn't even uniquely interesting to point out 'hypocrites' like Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump or Glenn Greenwald supported invading Iraq - because it would be really strange if they didn't. I do remember Bill Maher saying US troops would get their asses kicked in March 2003 but that was probably just part of his bit of being the ugly guy who gets booed
Fun story about this time: I was hanging out with a friend, and her friend who was visiting from out of town. Her friend's husband was deployed in Saudi Arabia and I very confidently explained my belief that it was all just sabre rattling and nothing would happen. This was my sincere belief at the time, because invading Iraq was so obviously dumb we wouldn't do it.
3 days later the bombing began.
Oops.
I was scared we were going to have another Vietnam--I had nightmares about my brothers and friends being drafted. (Little did I know that yes, we were going into a quagmire, but no, it would be fought by volunteers and mercenaries.) Then Shock and Awe happened, and everything went so fast, I thought well, maybe Saddam will be deposed with a minimum loss of life* and hopefully things in Iraq will be better? Yeah, not so much.
*extremely naïve, I know.
Yeah, Iraq basically became Galt's Gulch after 2006 and has been that way ever since. The small amount of socialized programs that existed are still being gutted to this day. Everything has been sold off to warlords and foreign interests. America got the oil, warlords got the infrastructure, housing is still free in a lot of places, but it's small and sucks. Power is still intermittent in a lot of places and all the more sustainable energy generation was scrapped for a return to burning oil and gas in generators.
The people are getting fed up though, and if the US finally steps out, we'll see a massive surge in revolutionary organizing. Most people hate ISIS and the US and the warlords. Without imperial backing, they won't be able to keep everyone down forever.
I really hope so. The people of Iraq have suffered so much, it would be amazing to see them thriving.