Despite Pentagon and CIA plans to convert Iraq into a paradise of freedom through massive death and destruction from bombs, missiles, tanks, and guns, the country today is one gigantic hell-hole of violence and the absence of freedom.

In fact, the Pentagon's assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani is a perfect sign of the failure of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Suleimani's presence in Iraq signified the ease by which Iranian officials, both military and non-military, visit Baghdad and travel easily around the city, which has to infuriate the Pentagon and the CIA. By contrast, U.S. officials know that if they try to do that, their lives will be quickly snuffed out in the land of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

How any American can still be an interventionist after this fiasco is beyond me. Operation Iraqi Freedom was supposed be the Pentagon's and the CIA's campaign to show the American people the "service" they could provide even though the Cold War was over. They could invade Third World countries and bring freedom to them through force of arms. Operation Iraqi Freedom was to be their showcase.