by Christopher Preble

About the author: Christopher Preble is director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a nonprofit public policy research foundation.

The American military's swift victory over the Baathist regime in Iraq seems in retrospect to have been a nearly textbook case of the vaunted "shock and awe" strategy made famous in the weeks leading up to the war. On the morning of March 20, 2003, the U.S. military launched a lightning "decapitation strike" against Saddam Hussein's government. A mere 21 days later, Americans were treated to televised images of Iraqis celebrating in the streets of Baghdad, tearing down statues of Hussein, and banging the soles of their shoes (an especially insulting gesture in Arab culture) on his nearly ubiquitous image.

The overwhelming military victory set the stage...