Yeah, hey, remember when the reason for the invasion was because Iraq was a direct threat to the safety of the United States, and when he stockpiled nuclear weapons? That doesn’t sound like a “quick in and out” to me. That sounds like a plan for an invasion that was going to go ahead no matter how paper-thin the disguising reasoning appeared to be, and that would establish an American base in the middle east.
Is the United States so rich and well-off that throwing a dozen billions of dollars at a “quick in and out” war seemed like the best thing to spend money on? As the current situation stands, the next American government can either withdraw within a few years, which would be the same as throwing a trillion dollars into a large bonfire, or occupy the area indefinitely, or at least for several decades, until the next generation can be brainwashed sufficiently to not immediately revert back to pre-war conditions. If all American military bases in Iraq get dismantled then I’ll be eating my hat with a dash of salt and pepper.
I’ll probably have to either bake or fry one. Since I suggested that it would be salty, I’d probably have to roll pieces of dough flavoured with some garlic butter into thin rods, fry them until solid, and weave them together with kind of paste serving as cement at each intersection. The paste could possibly be a light caramel, although in lieu of a paste I guess I could always use a sprig of parsley or something to tie the intersections together. In any case, it would be a fairly short hat, like a bowler hat or a cap, since a top hat is way too much work and architecturally daunting. Also mashed potatoes could possibly serve as a filling inside of the dough, so that it’d essentially be a giant french fry hat.