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The only time the mutual defence treaty was triggered is because the US was attacked and all countries in NATO stepped up to the plate.
Not just stepped up to the plate, but went pretty much all-in on a COMPLETELY pointless invasion against what was almost certainly the wrong country.
That's how committed they were to NATO.
I am assuming you mean the Iraq war, but that was not a NATO operation, it just happened to have many NATO allies providing support, not all of them.
To your point, it was called the "Coalition of the willing". Article 5 was not invoked.
Article 5 was invoked in response to 9/11: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm
That was Afghanistan.
Kind of, but not really. NATO did operations to ensure US's immediate security against further terrost attacks. Once the US affirmed it had it's shit together, NATO pulled out. Any countries that stuck around for the counter-attack wars (like Afghanistan and Iraq) did so under different banners. NATO does not encroach or encourage war, it exists to prevent it and will do what's necessary up to the point a nation is deemed safe again.
It circles the injured sheep and fights off the wolf. Once this is done, it doesn't then hunt down the fleeing wolf. This works very well because other animals aren't scared of NATO controlling the lands, but the wolves are also scared of trying to attack that herd.
Similarly, if everything went wrong for the US in Afghanistan, NATO wouldn't help. If the US retreated and started getting attacked in its homeland, NATO would.
At the time it was correct and very much not pointless. Where we fucked up was staying around and trying to nation build. Moment we destroyed al qaeda we should have left.
Edit: Afghanistan was in response to 9/11 not Iraq...
Al Qaeda was never in Iraq though.
Afghanistan was in response to 9/11 and where nato allies helped...
Completely different war.
Mission accomplished! (/s)
My implication is that if we really wanted to get Bin Laden / Al-Qaeda, the more sensible targets were Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. Which of course we didn't go after. We had a goal of spilling some Arab blood, but wanted a target that would be a cooperative punching bag.
And even then, we still fucking failed. Al-Qaeda still exists. Or it was consumed by/transformed into/always secretly was just a branch of Daesh who are still going strong. Or maybe they weren't really a coherent organization in the first place and were always more grassroots/franchised. Not to mention the Taliban are right back in power and doing their same shit. We accomplished nothing more than running the best possible recruitment campaign for the next generation of west-hating religious extremist warriors.
I wouldn't call it completely pointless. But I also wouldn't call it a success. Taliban are in power but they don't have interest in terrorizing the west (for now at least...) which at least is some sort of win. Other organizations with aspiration to attack the west were severely degraded in the war like al qaeda.
When did we destroy al qaeda?
There is a very long and informative wiki page about that and the Afghanistan war invite you to read. They were obliterated very early in the war.
As for a less smart ass response. They won't ever be "truly" gone. Same as ISIS. But we effectively beheaded the organization and prevented it from mounting any sort of serious attacks on the US and allies for the foreseeable future.
Modern day al qaeda is completely different from the organization of 2001 and a shell of its former self.
And the attack was done by rogue non-state actors. Europe agreed to go burn a whole district because a thug who lived roughly there punched USA in the face. Now Europe faces an entire mafia from another town and Trump says "should've bought better gear, bye suckers".