"The long-term fallout of the Iraq War suggests that the promotion of peace and stability cannot be reduced to discrete military objectives, nor can the United States impose its own economic values or interests upon another country without blowback."

Zaynab Quadri writes “American foreign policy has flaws embedded at its core. Iraq proved it.” for the Washington Post’s Made by History blog.

“Destroying the Iraqi armed forces and the Taliban was far easier than installing new governments and stabilizing countries that had been traumatized by years of misrule.”

Pete Mansoor writes in Foreign Affairs article "The Counterinsurgent’s Curriculum: Why American Troops Should Study the Iraq War"

“One can’t at once maintain that Iraq’s military forces can easily be walked over—something of a premise for the war‐​makers of 2003, and one that proved to be accurate—and also that this same demoralized and supremely incompetent military presented a coherent international threat.”

John Mueller writes for the CATO Institute in “The Iraq War, 20 Years Later”

“Policymakers have developed Iraq syndrome and now believe that the American public has no stomach for military operations conducted on foreign soil.”

Christopher Gelpi writes with Peter Feaver and Jason Reifler in their Foreign Affairs article “The Strange Case of Iraq Syndrome: How Elites Misread Public Perceptions of the War”