ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE

Christopher Hitchens cites another thing we've done right in our splendid, near-flawless war in Iraq:

...one thing has become even clearer in retrospect than it was at the time: It was absolutely correct to dissolve the pre-existing Iraqi armed forces...

If there was one thing about U.S. foreign policy that used to make one shudder, it was the habit of ruling by proxy through military regimes....

The case of Iraq, where the armed forces routinely acted as ... a spectacularly cruel internal police force ... was the instance above all where it was right to break with this abysmal tradition.

The Iraqi army was also the replication of sectarianism within the state....

Yes -- thank God we're no longer supporting a government that's a front for armed thugs! Thank God the people with guns are no longer spectacularly cruel replicators of sectarianism! Thank God that horrible nightmare era is over! Wouldn't it be awful if Iraq were still like that?

Bonus quote:

... everybody knows that unless the United States affirms its iron determination to stick around and to hold the ring, every faction in Iraq will start making its accommodations to a future that will be arbitrated instead by local militias and cross-border neighbors.

Yeah, as opposed to what those factions are doing now, which is totally different!