Why do so many people insist we lost the Iraq War in defiance of the evidence staring at us?
So disastrous was the Iraq war, in fact, so costly and unforced an error, that in retrospect it seems the hinge of the entire post–Cold War era, the moment when American hegemony switched from successful to problematic, welcomed to resisted. Two decades on, the unipolar moment has faded, along with dreams of a better Middle East and American appetite for active international engagement. What remains is the puzzle of how such an epically self-destructive fiasco could have happened in the first place.
The war was the hinge that changed a unipolar moment of American leadership into an epically self-destructive fiasco? Seriously?
I'm just going to focus on this claim because it is exhausting to take on every new bout of nuance that keeps floating to the media surface about how the Iraq War was a "strategic disaster."
During the Iraq War it was common to claim the war was a fiasco--until it wasn't.
Once it was merely alleged to be one of our biggest mistakes--which I rejected. Heck, even Biden and Obama--don't contradict our former president, you racist--called Iraq a success before withdrawing and failing to defend the success. That fiasco led to Iraq War 2.0 against a resurgent ISIL that established a caliphate across parts of Syria and Iraq.
Or the argument is flipped to say we needlessly made the effort for someone else's success. No, Iran didn't win the Iraq War--unless we let them win now. For some reason the success of Kurds no longer gassed, Iraqi Shias no longer impoverished and oppressed, Sunnis not part of the Tikrit "mafia" getting the police state treatment, victims of the terrorists that Saddam funded a bit less likely to die, and neighbors no longer under threat of invasion don't count because the war was a success for them, too? Normally one would consider that a record of success. I mean, did only America benefit from our fight in World War II? Is that the standard? Does Stalin's advance into Central Europe to begin its post-war super power status negate our success?
But I digress. Sort of.
Things are getting worse in this "fiasco" line of analysis as time goes on. There was a brief time when it wasn't all doom and gloom. Given the doom being wrongly laid at the feet of the Iraq War on the tenth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I thought it was a Festivus Miracle when I read an editorial in the Washington Post, of all places, that saw hope. I tossed off nine successes off the top of my head in that post.
I say we gave Arabs long suffering under autocrats or mullahs hope for a better future. And if we don't walk away, Iraq might renew that hope to finally make progress toward rule of law and democracy in the Middle East.
Hell, if you think "invading" a Moslem country in 2003 alienated the
Sunni Arab world, how do you explain that so much of that world is standing
by while Israel pounds Hamas into the sand for slaughtering and raping
Jews on October 7, 2023? Why didn't Russia's two brutal wars against Chechnya alienate the Islamic world?
Yet repeatedly, people who are supposed to inform us seem to live in a fantasy world of kite-flying simplicity before Bush 43 went and ruined the ride of regional "relative stability" by invading Iraq and overthrowing a murderous dictator.
Say, about the "unipolar moment" before the Iraq War ruined it. Ah yes, the era of "bully America" when Bill Clinton was still president. So sad we lost that. Please, click on the link and read about how little America was loved and eagerly followed in the Clinton era.
And aside from the above problem, quoting Bill Clinton to bolster his argument, as the author does in that initial link, is figuratively quite insane:
President Bill Clinton once told his staff that he found Iraq “the most difficult of problems because it is devoid of a sensible policy response.” Once Saddam survived the Gulf War, it was reasonable for the United States to try to contain him without getting sucked into another full-scale conflict. But that approach was costly, risky, and hard to sustain. The George W. Bush administration refused to accept that such an unsatisfying course was the least bad option available and blindly plunged into the abyss.
It is insane because under Clinton, the official policy of America on solving the problem of Iraq under Saddam was regime change. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998,
which Clinton signed, stated:
It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.Huh. In 1998! And let's not even bring up the once-popular-in-ruling-circles theory of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) that held rescuing people when it wasn't even in our national interest was the apex of force-using moral goodness. So that's non-operative for Iraq, now? I find R2P as a stand-alone policy pure idiocy. But I'm a knuckle-dragger and not a morally superior person of the left. So what's their problem with Iraq?
When you look very hard for a strategic debacle, unsurprisingly you find the evidence. It's natural but no less annoying to deal with when an author believes the war was a disaster.
Few victories are permanent. Yes, we won the Iraq War. Get over it. How easily that is unrecognized continues to astound me.
But the reality of our victory doesn't mean enemies--like jihadis, Iranians, Russians, and Chinese--won't try to reverse our victories. Our refusal to resist new enemies even on the ground we once won doesn't make our victories over past enemies any less victorious.
But it does make us idiots.
NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
