A deputy editor for the major establishment newspaper, the Washington Post, has written a column that belatedly marks the tenth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq while at the same time claiming he has learned a “lesson” that leads him to conclude there is a need for US intervention in Syria.

Jackson Diehl concedes he is like other Iraq War supporters, who now push for more US involvement in Syria, but he sociopathically argues:

Iraq was unquestionably costly and painful to the United States — in dollars, in political comity and, above all, in lives, both of Iraqis and Americans. It hasn’t turned out, so far, as we war supporters hoped. Yet in the absence of U.S. intervention, Syria is looking like it could produce a much worse humanitarian disaster and a far more serious strategic reverse for the United States. [emphasis added]

Diehl proceeds to compare what he believes happened after US forces invaded and occupied Iraq to what he believes is happening now in Syria because the US has not intervened.

He suggests the “United States faced down al-Qaeda and eventually dealt it a decisive defeat” while at the same time “A revival of al Qaeda in Iraq” is making it increasingly likely al Qaeda obtains “chemical or biological weapons.” And, “The Iraq war prompted low-level meddling by Iran, Syria and other neighbors but otherwise left the surrounding region unscathed, thanks to the U.S. presence.”

Those statements ignore how the Post‘s own Ernesto Londoño reported in November 2009—that though Iraq had once been a “foreign-led terrorist organization” it had developed into a “mostly Iraqi network of small, roving cells” that now relied on “the flow of fighters and weapons smuggled through the Syrian border, albeit at a slower rate.” Whatever “decisive” defeat was delivered to al Qaeda through the infamous “surge” did not prevent the eventual resurgence of an al Qaeda, which news agencies report is still “stepping up attacks on Shia targets and security forces.” And Diehl also declines to acknowledge that the intervention in Iraq made Iran a greater power in the region.

This is why one can say Diehl is suffering from a form of sociopathy. The facts are insignificant to the ideology driving him to the conclusion that US influence in the Middle East region is “plummeting” because the US has not been involved in Syria like it was in Iraq.

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