He says our response to Iran's actions in Iraq will lead to America snatching defeat from the jaws of victory a third time:
Coping with crisis of each given day often seems beyond America’s reach.
At the same time, focusing on the current crisis has now led to consistent failures in U.S. strategy in dealing with Iraq and the Middle East for nearly two decades, and has already turned two apparent “victories” into real world defeats. From the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 to the present, the U.S. has never had a workable grand strategy for Iraq, or any consistent plans and actions that have gone beyond current events.
So ... we won twice before? Sure, he puts "victories" in quotation marks. But if we in fact lost those last two, how is it that we could lose now what we already lost--twice?
On the bright side his three-part conflict formulation (although he defines the three differently) fits my framing of situation as the Iraq War begun in 2003 to overthrow Saddam and defend the new government from the enemy counterattacks, Iraq War 2.0 waged against ISIL, and Iraq War 3.0 against Iran inside Iraq.
I don't count the Persian Gulf War of 1991 because that was a battle for Kuwait and the Gulf rather than a battle for Iraq.
Is Iran gaining control of Iraq? My view is that Iran long had influence in Iraq. A Shia Iran appealed to the majority Shias in Iraq who suffered under the tyrant Saddam Hussein. America had virtually no influence in Saddam's Iraq. The destruction of the Saddam regime both gave America a big opportunity to expand our influence and gave Iraqi Shias the opportunity to discard their view of Iran as a potential savior from oppression. Old Arab-Persian friction could win out over Shia solidarity that Iran exploited for imperial motives now exposed.
Check this out:
Despite the consternation permeating Washington, Iran today is losing Iraq. Since the American invasion in 2003, Iran seemed to be the most consequential external actor in Iraq. Tehran has influenced the choice of prime ministers and parliamentarians, trained militias that it used as an auxiliary force across the region, and was responsible for the deaths of numerous American soldiers. It did all this with impunity. Paradoxically, the latest military clash between the United States and this client of the Islamist regime may hasten the end of its domination of Iraqi politics.
Although to clarify, the rise of those militias was a response to the rise of ISIL in 2014 as a result of our departure in 2011. But the point is broadly correct.
Iraqi opponents of Iran now see that America is an ally in rejecting Iranian influence. That is a good thing that can build on the effects of 2003.
And for good measure Cordesman says we will lose the Gulf region. Huh? That's an even bigger head scratcher.
But he has an excellent point that an independent Iraq is more important than trying to get a strategic partner in Iraq. We have the latter and I've noted they help us kill jihadis every day. But the former would likely lead to the latter while the latter emphasis ignores the former. As a rule of law guy the former has been high on my list.
And I have long said it was a big mistake to focus on supporting specific Iraqi candidates for the prime minister's office rather than supporting a system that guarantees regular and free elections.
Still, Cordesman has lots of information and makes good points so he is worth reading. I've thought that since college when I used his stuff. It would actually be nice if we go three for three on victories rather than getting past this struggle only to find we must defend a win in Iraq for the fourth time.
