We lost more than 4,500 troops and spent north of $700 billion to defeat Saddam, Iran, and al Qaeda in Iraq. Why are we doing nothing to preserve that costly win?
We fought a war in Iraq because it is important to our security. Has the price we paid blinded us to that basic reality? Why do we ignore Iraq?
It is hard to determine why Iraq receives so little U.S. attention as it drifts towards sectarian conflict, civil war, and alignment with Iran. Tensions in Iraq have been rising for well over a year, and the UN warned on June 1, 2013 that "1,045 Iraqis were killed and another 2,397 were wounded in acts of terrorism and acts of violence in May. The number of civilians killed was 963 (including 181 civilian police), and the number of civilians injured was 2,191 (including 359 civilian police). A further 82 members of the Iraqi Security Forces were killed and 206 were injured."
This neglect may be a matter of war fatigue; the result of a conflict the United States "won" at a tactical level but seems to have lost at a strategic level. It may be the result of the fact the civil war in Syria is more intensive, produces more human suffering, and is more open to the media. The end result, however, is that that the United States is just beginning to see how much of a strategic pivot Iraq has become.
President Bush won the war in Iraq. Yes, it was a tactical victory in that we "only" defeated Saddam to create a friendlier Iraq, set back Iran's ambitions to control post-invasion Iraq, and smashed up al Qaeda's invasion of Iraq.
Yet Bush set the stage for a strategic victory that required very little from President Obama to cement. But the Obama administration would not defend and exploit Bush's tactical win to create a strategic win of a stable and prosperous democratic Iraq in the heart of the Moslem world.
I don't think the Obama administration wanted anything more from Iraq than a decent interval before Iraq is lost. If Iraq succeeded without much of our help, they wouldn't complain. But they wouldn't do much to help defend "Bush's" war of choice (and we'll ignore the declaration of war on Iraq from a Republican House and Democratic Senate supported by both parties).
And the quiet is lasting long enough for the Obama administration to pivot
So if Iraq collapses after we have gotten out of the Gulf region and washed our hands of the problem? Oh well. That was Bush's fault.
But no, the Obama administration can't avoid responsibility for what happens to Iraq on its watch. At this point, if Benghazi was "a long time ago" as Carney tried to claim, the Bush administration is ancient history.
And it isn't too late. Iraqi Shias aren't destined to be pro-Iran. But the Iraqis are afraid of Iran. We have a problem in Iraq and we must work the problem rather than look away and pretend it doesn't matter (from the first link):
A revitalized U.S. office of military cooperation and timely U.S. arms transfer might give the United States more leverage, and U.S. efforts to persuade Arab Gulf states that it is far better to try to work with Iraq than isolate it might have a major impact. Limited and well-focused U.S. economic and governance aid might improve leverage in a country that may have major oil export earnings but whose economy needs aid in reform more than money and today has the per capita income of a poverty state, ranking only 162 in the world.
The tide of war is coming in and we choose to do nothing. The stupidity is mind bottling. One day we'll remember when hopes for a free Iraq were alive, if we watch the chaos gather and grow.
UPDATE: More on the Shia tide coming in to match the al Qaeda tide:
In the last two years al Qaeda been very open about its desire to regain control of parts of Iraq that it lost in 2007-8. Terrorism deaths have increased since the last American troops left at the end of 2011, and until recently the Shia controlled government, and the Shia majority, have not retaliated against the Sunni Arab minority. But now the armed (and technically illegal) Shia militias have resumed their use of death squads to drive Sunni Arabs out of their remaining neighborhoods or even out of Iraq. In the last two months there have been over 2,000 terrorism related deaths, and a growing number of the victims are Sunnis.
I assume our administration department secretaries and staff don't believe all this since their boss told us he "responsibly ended" the war in Iraq in 2011.
