What learning that has gone on has been confined to tactics. Nobody asks if the war should have been fought in the first place. From William J. Astore at antiwar.com:
20 Years Later, Basic Truths Remain Unspoken
What has America learned from the colossal failure of the Iraq War? Not what it should have learned, notes historian (and retired U.S. Army colonel) Greg Daddis at War on the Rocks. Daddis recently attended a 20-year retrospective symposium on the Iraq War, where he heard two distinctive narratives. As he put it:
Most, if not all, veterans of “Iraqi Freedom” told an inward-facing story focusing on tactical and operational “lessons” largely devoid of political context. Meanwhile, Iraqi scholars and civilians shared a vastly different tale of political and social upheaval that concentrated far more on the costs of war than on the supposed benefits of US interventionism.
In short, the US view of the Iraq War remains insular and narcissistic. The focus is on what US troops may have gotten wrong, and how the military could perform better in the future. It’s about tactical and operational lessons. In this approach, Iraq and the Iraqi people remain a backdrop to American action on the grand stage. Put differently, the Iraqis are treated much like clay for Americans to mold or discard should they refuse to behave themselves under our hands.
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 