25 Years Later: "We Were Wrong About The War"

The gist

1. Military leaders expected the Iraq War to last weeks or months, like Panama or Grenada, but it stretched into a two-decade nation-building effort.
2. Around 2005, the shift to counterinsurgency marked the moment leaders accepted this was a generational conflict, not a quick regime change.
3. The guest describes 9/11 as a true black swan that reshaped travel, security, and foreign policy overnight in a way Pearl Harbor did not.
4. Missing ground-level knowledge of Sunni and Shia tensions left decision-makers without the context needed before committing to large-scale operations.