I was under the impression that the US "easily" dominated Iraq's institutional armed forces, toppling their government and "winning" (Mission Accomplished). Wha

I was under the impression that the US "easily" dominated Iraq's institutional armed forces, toppling their government and "winning" (Mission Accomplished). What we're doing very poorly, though, is occupying and policing the region, now that we've taken care of the previous government. In the case of war with the Soviet Union, I'm guessing that there was heavy emphasis on dealing with nuclear war or full-scale land combat in Europe, with the primary objective of beheading and toppling the Soviet control structure. By contrast, in Iraq, our goal is (apparently) to occupy and subdue the entire region, which is a different, difficult problem.