Fissiparous Iraq

This post is rooted in the conviction that ‘politics stop at the water’s edge.’

It was a mistake to make the physical invasion of Iraq as we did. There were strong humanitarian reasons for doing so; Saddam Hussein was a barbarous dictator. However, deposing Hussein, invading, and embarking on a state-building project requiring massive investment in resources, was untenable.

But we invaded.

The impetus behind the invasion was not, I believe, mischievous. There were, of course, the mendacious tales of weapons of mass destruction.  Whereas it seemes plausible that Hussein got rid of the potentional ‘smoking gun’ before troops landed, semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit.  After the invasion the United States managed the acquisition of Iraq’s oil fields to China, Canada, the Netherlands, and others, taking little for itself (a move that would have been justifiable, perhaps, to contribute toward repaying war costs). But our motivation was patently not to ‘build an empire’ and amass spoils, extending our reach like Imperial Rome. To do so is not in our national character—and besides, we had reliable lessons in history from mother Britain.

To my mind, the mistake of the Bush administration lay in this myth: that pax americae can exist, not by Imperial conquest, but by Imperial democracy-spreading.

The call to leave Iraq was a reasonable one. After the passion of vengeance for 9-11 subsided with the invasion of Afghanistan and with the passing of time, our heads cleared and we realized invading Iraq was not a wise decision. Losing soldiers, loving peace, and with Monroe’s doctrine still in the back of our minds, we wanted to be done with it.

So we left.

In my opinion, an unwise decision compounded upon another. Leaving Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to his sectarian impulses, and the Iraqi army half-trained, we left a vacuum waiting to be filled.

At this point, one can argue that, because we should have never invaded in the first place, it didn’t matter what happened next: all that mattered was that we leave.

But that, it seems to me, is not a prudent conclusion to make. It seems to me that after accepting the burden of Iraq, we should have carried it through.

But now what shall we do?

A question above my pay grade, I will quote someone with a higher salary, more experience, but goodness-knows if anything else. Here it is:

In Iraq, the answer is not to send troops back in. It is to provide Maliki help in exchange for concrete measures to reduce sectarian tensions. The Iraqi government could empower regional governments, acknowledging the nation’s diversity. Maliki could re-professionalize [sic] the Army. The Constitution could impose term limits on prime ministers.

But these provisions would require a more forward-leaning American posture around the world, an awareness that sometimes a U.S.-created vacuum can be ruinous. The president says his doctrine is don’t do stupid stuff. Sometimes withdrawal is the stupidest thing of all.

-David Brooks

Part of the lesson we should learn from our mother, the mother of empire, is that in our globalised world, a hegemonic ‘referee’ with the (albeit imperfect) values of the United States is a relief; a gift to the world we should not be shy of recognising. The full-scale invasion of Iraq was arguably a mistake, yes, but that does not mean we should shuffle back to our shores in shame. To do so is to leave—the Middle East in particular—in a precarious spot with hellish radicals stealing the attention and resources of nation-states who should be concentrating on providing security, stability, and freedom for their peoples. The United States is just—and as of now the only—power who can provide resistance to radicals’ movements, allowing nation-states in the Middle East room to grow and breathe. The modes of our resistance are sundry; full-scale ‘boots on the ground’ invasions are not our only play.