We won the Iraq War. Nearly lost it. Then won it again. Are we sleepwalking into round three as Iran continues to undermine Iraq?*
Iran-backed Shi’a militants likely massacred unarmed Sunni civilians in Diyala on February 20. ISIS has not commented on the attack. Pro-Iran politicians accused ISIS of the attack, likely in an effort to obfuscate responsibility. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) arrested 18 suspects in the attack, though it is highly unlikely the Iraqi government will hold the perpetrators accountable. ISIS may use this attack to position itself as a protector of the local community. ISIS may do this by targeting local security forces, particularly Shi’a militias, to illustrate its capabilities to locals.
This is the kind of problem that can turn Sunni Arabs into jihadi supporters.
And if the government can't protect people, they will fall back on their group identities that will exacerbate the conflict:
The Iraqi government’s response in Diyala will likely fail to secure both Shi’a and Sunni communities against further acts of violence. Locals are expressing distrust in the ISF’s ability to bring the perpetrators to justice. The ISF will likely briefly arrest militia members before promptly releasing them. The Iraqi government has promised to investigate similar massacres, before failing to make arrests or release findings to the public.
Preventing Shia Arabs from killing Sunni Arabs helped engineer the Anbar Awakening to win the first round.
Yes, we won the original Iraq War.
But we prematurely left in 2011, and without our presence to see the problem developing, ISIL convinced a lot of Iraqi Sunni Arabs--with some justification--that ISIL was their protector against revenge-seeking Shias.
Since our absence also made us oblivious to the deterioration of the Iraqi military leadership and the alienation of the Sunni Arabs once converted by the Awakening, we didn't even see the approaching rapid ISIL offensive/uprising that swept a collapsing Iraqi military out of western and northwestern Iraq.
To my surprise and delight--and worry that he was not serious--the Obama administration recognized belatedly that it had to defend the win and supported the Iraqis for Iraq War 2.0. Unfortunately, Iran took advantage to make inroads into dominating Iraqi factions.
The new war stretched on way too long in my opinion. Seriously, what was our major malfunction? But Trump carried the war on to a new victory despite his own reservations.
Yet here we are again, with ISIL setting the stage to again look like Sunni Arab protectors.
America and our allies remained in Iraq to prevent Iraq War 3.0. We didn't make that 2011 mistake again, at least. Not yet, anyway.
Don't act as if 2,500 American troops "still" in Iraq is something alarming. American troops are "still" in South Korea, Japan, Germany, and Italy. Because it is worth it to defend a hard-won victory and keep new allies on our side fighting common enemies.
We can't say we made it to 20 years holding Afghanistan in the win column, can we?
Let's hold the line by stopping the Shia killers that Iran is encouraging or actually controlling--this stage is really a war against Iran inside Iraq notwithstanding the jihadi problem. We must also bolster Iraqi governance and military competence, and directly kill ISIL jihadis wherever we find them.
The Sunni Kurds were an important part of the Iraqi government's counteroffensive to defeat ISIL. Will the Kurds step up again? Or will the Kurds hunker down and try to keep their oasis of stability intact and let the rest of Iraq sort out this problem without them?
Despite my concerns about sustaining our presence inside Syria, our small military presence there actually does help prevent ISIL in Syria from helping out in Iraq more. General Milley visibly stated that:
The nearly eight-year-old U.S. deployment to Syria to combat Islamic State is still worth the risk, the top U.S. military officer said on Saturday, after a rare, unannounced visit to a dusty base in the country's northeast to meet U.S. troops.
And our Secretary of Defense in Iraq for the 20th anniversary of the invasion to overthrow the Saddam regime pledged to stay:
U.S. forces are ready to remain in Iraq at the invitation of the government of Iraq. These forces are operating in a non-combat advise, assist and enable role to support the Iraqi-led fight against terrorism. This is a critical mission, and we're proud to support our Iraqi partners.
Good. But don't forget promoting rule of law in Iraq to entrench democracy and expel Iranian influence. This Iraqi former member of parliament expressed the current problem well:
Al-Sheikh is keen to be, as he calls it, “fair”. Without US intervention, he concedes, Iraqis would never have been liberated from the former regime, but the job is unfinished.
For God's sake lets not blow this--again. We keep pivoting away from the region a bit too much for my tastes before the job is done.
UPDATE: Mission accomplished:
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday said he would support legislation to repeal two Iraq war authorizations.
We're in Phase IX of the Iraq War. Does Iran agree the war is over?
*You could count this as round 4 or 5, depending on how you count the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the subsequent low-level No-Fly Zone conflict during the 1990s. Heck, maybe what is going on inside Iraq is really the Iran-Iraq War 2.0.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 continues here.
