The debate over the Iraq War is way more of a quagmire than the Iraq War that America actually won.
Reader Eric, who has long defended the foundation of the legality of the Iraq War,
emailed that 20-year retrospectives on the Iraq War have included the
charge that it was a mistake to focus on counter-insurgency instead of
counter-terrorism after overthrowing Saddam. I'm not going to read the actual article because I've seen this all before and it will only raise my blood pressure. But let's have a go at the issue anyway, eh?
One, terrorism was a major component of the insurgencies--because of a basic weakness of the Iraq insurgents. Without counter-insurgency, the terrorists would have gone up the escalation ladder.
And two, separating the two missions is folly. As I discussed here, here, here, and here. And I assume in more posts.
Counter-insurgency provides the information to inform and focus the counter-terrorism mission. Ideally you have friendly local forces doing both missions, which is the ultimate objective. If you have to conduct counter-terrorism while the locals do counter-insurgency, that works too on the way to the ultimate objective. And doing both with your own forces is the safety net until locals can take on more of the job.
This is Counter-Insurgency 101, people. Don't try to skip to the end too soon. In many ways the Awakening was an instant creation of local forces--who as former enemies knew the al Qaeda jihadis quite well--to help American and Iraqi forces go after the terrorists.
Oh, one effort to argue we could have skipped to the end is pretending that former enemies can instantly be the foundation for friendly local capabilities. That doesn't work. Especially when the "former" enemy is a minority that oppressed the majority for centuries. It took years before the Sunni Arabs realized they'd made a big mistake fighting America to retain power.
But given the enthusiasm for conducting counter-terrorism in Afghanistan from over-the-horizon, I guess people forget a lot. Or get told to forget about the whole issue.
We went through many phases of the Iraq War to win after the surge and Awakening--which is oddly not recognized. But we still have to protect the win against Iran and against the related but separate corruption and lack of rule of law inside Iraq. I ran across this post as we left Iraq in 2011 that holds up pretty well.
We did a lot of this re-debate in mid-2014 when ISIL rose up in Iraq and Obama decided to re-engage in Iraq War 2.0 to defend the win he and Biden recognized. So perhaps my overview of the original war at that time is useful.
But I guess a lot of people keep seeing the shadow of defeat every spring. So we're doomed to go over the same ground a little longer. Still, there is hope. I'm old enough to remember when victory was grudgingly recognized after accusations of a fiasco.*
So maybe next spring--or at the 25-year mark?--we won't have the same debate. Again.
*Back then "the surge" was shorthand and was generally recognized as including the Awakening. Now it is more necessary to specifically mention the Awakening, too.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
