We actually freaking won the Iraq War. We won it when the left said it could not be won. All President Obama had to do was negotiate a status of forces agreement with Iraq by the end of his third year in office. He failed to do that.
Now we struggle with the Syria problem in the shadow of that failure as we move troops into Jordan and hope Turkey isn't too distracted by internal protests to help:
We are now scrambling to put together some kind of presence in Jordan as a defensive counterweight to the Iran-Hezbollah-Russia bloc.
The tragedy is that we once had a counterweight and Obama threw it away. Obama still thinks the total evacuation of Iraq is a foreign-policy triumph. In fact, his inability — unwillingness? — to negotiate a status of forces agreement that would have left behind a small but powerful residual force in Iraq is precisely what compels him today to recreate in Jordan a pale facsimile of that regional presence.
Whatever the wisdom of the Iraq War in the first place, when Obama came to office in January 2009 the war was won. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had been routed. Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite government had taken down the Sadr Shiite extremists from Basra all the way north to Baghdad. Casualties were at a wartime low, the civil war essentially over.
We had a golden opportunity to reap the rewards of this too-bloody war by establishing a strategic relationship with an Iraq that was still under American sway. Iraqi airspace, for example, was under U.S. control as we prepared to advise and rebuild Iraq’s nonexistent air force.
With Iraq firmly in our corner rather than too afraid of Iran to resist Iranian pressure, Assad might be defeated by now. But no, Iranian help flows across Iraq to Assad.
And if Iraq had been in our corner, Hezbollah might see no value in defending their land line of supply through Syria since it would have already been cut at Iraq. So Hezbollah might be hunkering down in Lebanon hoping not to be noticed and wondering what they needed to do to survive without friends nearby.
But at least President Obama is starting to arm the rebels in Syria. As long as we keep that idea of "leveling the playing field" out of the discussions and focus on defeating Assad and preparing Syrian rebels we can tolerate for the fight over Syria after Assad is gone, we could still come out okay.
With Syria out of Iran's hands, Hezbollah will be isolated and bloodied after their fight inside Syria.
And Iran will be out a lot of money and prestige if Syria is lost as a puppet.
Iraq will at least no longer have to give in to Iranian demands to supply Assad through Iraqi air space. And with Iran taking one on the chin, may be able to resist Iran more effectively in general.
The Arab Gulf states will heave a sigh of relief, too, that we are capable of resisting Iranian efforts to dominate the region.
So yeah, we should make the effort to resolve the issues that have exploded without our presence in Iraq to counter the developments. I do think things would be better if we'd acted sooner to oppose Assad. But it is likely true that it is better late than never.
