ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what America’s enemies have learned from the two United States (US)-led wars in Iraq. In the 2003 Iraq War, insurgents and terrorists in Iraq shunned conventional warfare and instead turned to a guerrilla-style insurgency that prominently fea-tured the use of Improvised Explosive Devices. The chapter offers broad lessons for US policymakers. It also discusses several ways to shift the strategic paradigm in the wider Middle East in a direction favourable to US interests and reduce the need for US armed invasion, occupation and counterinsurgency in the region. Therefore, US decision-makers should approach future invasions in the wider Middle East—invasions that will almost certainly lead to an extended US occupation and insurgency—with great caution. If the US is to protect its substantial interests in the wider Middle East without resorting to large-scale invasions and occupations of Muslim countries, it must work tirelessly to change the macro-trends in the region.
