It's almost like you can't just deem a war over:
Unresolved sectarian tensions, inflamed by the raging civil war in neighboring Syria, have combined to send violence in Iraq to its highest level since Obama withdrew the last U.S. troops in December 2011, U.S. officials and Middle East analysts say.
A Sunni Muslim insurgency against the Shi'ite-led Baghdad government has also been reawakened. The insurgents' defeat had been a major outcome of then-President George W. Bush's troop "surge" in 2007.
The deteriorating situation - largely overshadowed by a Syrian civil war that has killed 80,000 people - has prompted what U.S. officials describe as an intense, mostly behind-the-scenes effort to curb the violence and get Iraqis back to political negotiations.
The article says we are working to resolve the problems--and I did read back in March that our CIA has reinforced the Iraqis to help with counter-terrorism operations.
But the article also says that Iraqis don't really look to us for solutions. Which, if true, demonstrates why I wanted to keep troops in Iraq after 2011. My hopes of 25,000 American troops to include three combat brigades is just a sad hope now. I wanted troops there to provide all the factions with the confidence that a powerful force was present to keep factions from going outside the bounds of politics to resolve disputes. Take away that fear of losing the usual Middle East way (death, prison, or refugee status abroad) and habits of democracy (and rule of law) could be cultivated.
Maybe Iraq will endure this storm raging in from Syria and from within. Maybe the Sunni Arabs will pull back from another bout of extreme stupidity and refuse to revolt. Maybe the Shias will be able to ignore the radical pro-Iran elements within their ranks. Maybe the Kurds will find away to resolve disputes with Arabs about the borders of the Kurdish region in light of past Saddam-era ethnic cleansing of Kurdish regions. It is possible that our behind-the-scenes efforts will be enough.
But I sure do worry that we are blowing the sacrifice of 4500 dead Americans and expenditures north of $700 billion (if my memory serves me).
Mind you, smashing Saddam's regime was a worthwhile goal. He was an evil enemy who aspired to (again) have WMD in his arsenal. Good riddance.
But if we don't find value in a democratic Iraq that serves as an ally and sets an example for an alternative to autocracy or mullah rule for Moslems, we could have pulled out our troops about 4,000 casualties ago when we captured Saddam. We would have risked sectarian warfare. But that is what we risk now from our own short-sightedness after winning the counter-insurgency that followed the defeat of Saddam's government, and at least many of our deaths would have been avoided.
Sure, the level of Iraqi deaths would have been far more intense as we see what Syria is going through now. But the international community seems fine with that, now doesn't it?
President Obama responsibly ended the Iraq War. He promises to do the same in Afghanistan. And he announced the end of the war on terror. God help us all.
PRE-POST UPDATE: Strategypage has a lengthy post on Iraq. Well worth the read. Remember, one of the successes of the 2007 surge and Iraq's post-surge Charge of the Knights operation in Basra was the suppression of the Shia death squads that returned the Sunni Arab slaughter of Shias with a Shia-led slaughter of Sunni Arabs. Al Qaeda, Sunni Arabs more generally, and Shia are all returning to their killing ways. We're still far from the dark days of late summer and fall 2006, but that shouldn't be too comforting right now.
