Iraq, Iran, I Conquered?

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This Issue...

(Full PDF of the issue)

The War in Iraq isn't as clear-cut as we hoped.

By: William Cohen on April 20th, 2007 at 9:38 AM

On April 1, Arizona Senator and wannabe-President John McCain visited Baghdad and strolled through Shorja Market, just across from the highly protected U.S. “green zone.” The reason for McCain’s visit to Iraq was ostensibly to show how the situation has improved in the capital city since the beginning of the “surge,” which is currently sending more troops into Iraq.

An observer might remark that it was remarkable that a prominent American like McCain was publicly able to walk openly in war-torn Baghdad. But this was more than a mere stroll—McCain wore a flak jacket and was accompanied by 100 troops and five gunship helicopters at an incredible expense. The day after McCain visited, 21 workers at the market were murdered.

As much as many (including myself) would like to believe, Iraq remains a mess four years after the invasion begun. Although the U.S. was able to topple Saddam’s regime quickly, in a model of efficiency, our troops continued to be bogged down in a conflict that may not exactly be a civil war, but something close to it. With every day that passes, the prospect of a victory diminishes. It’s becoming quite clear that we cannot in Iraq, at least in the terms we originally defined.

If the goal was to topple Saddam, we succeeded; if our goal was to establish a democratic Iraq, our prospects of victory still have a chance; if the goal was to stabilize the Middle East, we’ve got a long way to go and have definitely destabilized the region at least in the short term.

So what went wrong? And where does the United States go from here? Is “victory” still possible in Iraq? Because, quite frankly, the general public no longer has the stomach for this war, despite the fact the American casualty rate has been much lower compared to other comparable wars such as Vietnam. Most Americans perceive there is a lack of progress in Iraq—that our troops are increasingly stuck in a quagmire as the country goes to hell around them. I believe that most Americans do want to win in Iraq, and I believe most Americans reject the suicidal notion of “pull out now.” The simple truth is that there is no political will to keep the troops in Iraq the amount of time they would need to pacify the country (and that’s a long time).

The only feasible way to realistically bring order to the chaos that is Iraq would be to drastically increase the number of troops in the country—in effect, we would have to create something close to a police state with hundreds of thousands of troops rolling down the streets of Baghdad. But this is not a realistic solution by any means. There is a certain logic to the “surge” concept, and there is some evidence that the surge has slightly decreased the violence around Baghdad. Unfortunately, this seems to be pushing insurgents into the rural countryside.

The intentions behind the surge are good-natured, and it is a step in the right direction (by doing something at all), but the policy is too limited to achieve anything of gain. And it is simply not realistic to introduce more coalition troops into the region—the U.K. has already started to pull out, and there is increasingly a feeling of “let’s try and cut our losses.”

And cut our losses we must. We have to give up on the idea that Iraqis will embrace democracy with open arms and will serve as a shining beacon of prosperity to the rest of the Middle East. This sentiment was, by far, the Bush Administration’s biggest folly when deciding on a course of war—the assumption that all peoples want and are ready for an American-style system of government. It is very admirable that Iraqis have been able to vote freely in democratic elections for the first time ever. But it is not stopping the violence. This was a far more destructive assumption than the thought that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction—honestly, Iraq would still be in the same state it is in today even if some WMDs had been found.

Iraq is a country with deep divisions on ethnic lines—no one really gave any thought to the simmering hostility between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. There was a depressing assumption, among almost everybody (including Democrats) in 2003 that the almost magical power of democracy and freedom would somehow solve these problems. For all of his horror, at least Saddam Hussein was able to govern the country as one cohesive unit.

And let me be clear on this point: Saddam Hussein was a monster who deserved every bit of his fate, and no, I don’t consider his trial in any way barbaric or unjust. If we accomplished nothing else in Iraq, we disposed of a horrible dictator that brazenly murdered his own people. But here lies another mistake of the war plans—the Ba’athist Regime under Saddam was completely dismantled, leaving coalition forces to build a new government from scratch. Had we kept the existing structure in place (with the decapitation of its top leaders, of course) and slowly modified it into something more democratic, it is possible the level of violence would have been kept down.

But that didn’t happen. And right now it’s pointless trying to talk about what could have been and whether or not we were justified in going into Iraq. We are there now. There is no American who doesn’t want the military to leave Iraq—it is a question of when. We are continually bound by our own dogma—it sounds nice when we hear we are standing up for freedom and democracy, and giving Iraqis rights, but this limits what we can and can not do in Iraq. Our number one goal should not be, and never should have been, making Iraq into an America for the Middle East. Our goal should be stopping terrorism around the world and protecting the United States. That’s it.

In Iraq, we have unfortunately given ourselves the job of nation-building. But the United States is not well-suited to this task—we accomplished it once in the aftermath of Hitler and Tojo, but those were totally defeated enemies we had reduced to almost nothing. In Iraq, we face a populace that increasingly does not want us there. The idea that we should be winning over Iraqi hearts and minds is hopefully discredited by this point, and that idea can be downright dangerous.

If we want to succeed in Iraq—and I do believe there is some measure of success left—we have to reconsider what we want. The goal is defeating terrorism. And undoubtedly terrorists of the region (and their state sponsors) will be dealt a hurtful blow if a stable Iraqi government is set up. A stable government is key. It must be able to hold two different factions of Islam together in one nation. This may have to mean that the government in power is not the nicest entity in the world. It may not be the most democratic power in the world.

Some may say this is a violation of our principles. I say, tough shit. This is a war. It is not a war in the traditional sense; we are up against a fanatic enemy with guerilla tactics. There are no cities we can simply bomb into submission. They will keep coming. The Iraq War, contrary to what some may tell you, is a vital part of the broader War on Terrorism. It is there we are fighting the agents of terror and their allies; it is there we must make a stand. We will have to be smart. We will have to be nasty. If it means confronting nations like Iran, who are assisting Ba’ath Loyalists and Al-Qaeda, so be it.

But something tells me the American public doesn’t have the stomach for a prolonged campaign. After all, Americans like their wars to be quick, easy and painless. That’s why support for the War in Iraq has diminished so much. Those on the left view the war as immoral and imperialistic, and we must pull out now, because to stay in Iraq is to invite greater disaster.

It’s my hope that most Americans reject this line of reasoning. To pull out now would be an incredible disaster, and would only make things far, far worse. Civil war would openly break out and Iraq would devolve into a chaotic pool of blood. This would destabilize the Middle East to such a great degree the security of America would be greatly threatened. The Iraqi government must be made capable—by whatever means necessary.

It’s too bad I don’t see this happening. The Iraqi Security Forces appear to be woefully inept and there’s only so much training the U.S. can provide. I don’t think the Bush Administration has the stomach to do what is necessary to prop up al-Maliki’s government—there is simply no way they will be able to take control by the end of this year as President Bush has promised. If most of the nation wants out, then there is little doubt we will be moving out. 

But withdrawal needs to be carefully executed. If we are to leave, it’s time to do what we can to stabilize the nation in the time we have left and leave gradually and efficiently. But I can’t help but think that no matter who gets elected in 2008, the situation in Iraq is going to get worse before it gets better.

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