Wars haven't taught GOP much

As Republicans gather in their national convention, the chief problem with restoring them to governance is their obliviousness to learning any lessons from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That's particularly true regarding their nominee, Mitt Romney, who combines foreign-policy inexperience with an unrealistic view of the extent to which the United States can impose its will on other nations.

So far, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost American taxpayers $1.4trillion. More than 6,500 soldiers have lost their lives in those conflicts. Nearly 40,000 have been wounded.

Those are very big costs. A reflective nation would ponder what has been gained from incurring them. The only honest answer is: not much.

Al-Qaida was chased out of Afghanistan. But that was done with very little cost or American casualties. We deployed very few ground troops to oust al-Qaida and the Taliban. More than a decade later, we have 84,000 troops there to keep them from coming back.

Saddam Hussein wasn't the imminent threat thought regarding weapons of mass destruction.

In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States built security forces and infrastructure local governments cannot maintain. Both countries are among the most corrupt places to do business in the world. Neither has a stable future in sight. Neither is a natural ally of the United States.

With respect to the wars, however, the Republican Party is not a reflective party. And Romney is not a reflective nominee.

For Republicans, the costs don't matter. The only thing that matters is winning, whatever the cost. Even if winning in these two countries has no intelligible definition.

When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, he pledged to have a more humble foreign policy and eschew nation building. He said that 9/11 changed everything for him. As it did for all of us.

Bush thought we had to take the fight to the enemy and led the country to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. He thought the United States had to ramrod democratic change in Islamic countries. And he thought the United States had to divide the world into those who are with us and those who are against us in the fight against terrorism.

The country followed Bush in all this. But today, the Bush approach seems out of touch with reality.

The United States did not purchase $1.4trillion worth of additional security from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. efforts to ramrod democratic transformation in the Middle East came a cropper and were quickly abandoned. Then, the Arab Spring erupted, taking the U.S. entirely by surprise.

And the world clearly cannot be divided between those who are with us and those who are against us.

Yet the Republican Party remains committed to the Bush view of the world. And Romney, if anything, sounds more bellicose than Bush.

Republicans deride Barack Obama's foreign policy as naive and, in some respects, accurately so. Obama clearly came into office with unrealistic views of what good intentions and deeds can purchase in international diplomacy.

But Romney believes the United States is still boss of the world. That we can tell China, Russia and Iran what to do, and they will do it. That's equally as naive. Romney also wants to massively increase defense spending, saying he would put a floor under it of 4 percent of GDP. That's considerably more than is in the budget of his running mate, Paul Ryan.

Romney's defense-spending pledge undermines one of his chief claims to office: that he will fix the finances of the federal government.

Romney and Ryan deserve enormous credit for saying that domestic-entitlement spending cannot be sustained. But neither can the country's massive military footprint around the globe.

Libya offers the best illustration of why putting Republicans back in charge of the military and foreign policy is so troubling. Republicans are mad because the United States played a secondary role in ousting Moammar Gadhafi. We shouldn't have ceded leadership to France, Britain and Qatar, they complain.

For the rest of the country, after the experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, letting someone else do some of the fighting probably seems like a capital idea.

Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com.

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