Did We Win in Iraq?

As the last US Combat brigade pulled out of Iraq last week, a soldier hollered, “We won – it’s over – America!”  Most everyone knows it’s not that simple.  With 50,000 troops remaining indefinitely, the US is still very much “in Iraq.”  Nevertheless, the current milestone is as good as any other place to assess the degree of American success.  That assessment should be begin by considering the Bush Administration’s objectives for the invasion of Iraq in the first place.  Did we really win in Iraq, and if so, was it worth it?

Fair-minded historians will look back and observe that several reasons motivated the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003.  The Bush Administration’s principal public argument for going to war in Iraq was to keep Saddam Hussein from expanding his allegedly existing supply of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but none was found.   By this crucial standard alone, the war was an utter failure.

However WMD was always more of an excuse to invade Iraq than a primary motivation.  The reflexive Left always said it was really about oil, and oil was certainly a factor, but a secondary one.  Rather, the Iraqi War was ideological.  After 911, so-called “neo-conservatives” convinced Bush that the 911 terror attacks were a result of the anti-democratic and politically backward orientation of the Middle East.  America could only be safe, they argued, if the Muslim world became democratic, like us.  Out of a democratic Muslim world would flow many benefits, including a political swamp drained of terrorists, peace with Israel and, finally, a reliable supply of oil.  The objective was to set up a powerful democracy in the middle of the Middle East, then sit back and watch the democratic dominoes fall as one Muslim people after another learned to emulate Baghdad, Iraq, the new shining city on the Tigris and Euphrates.

There was nothing “conservative” in this “neo-conservatism.”  True Edmund Burke-style conservatives, who were little heard from in 2003, realized that the Middle East was far less prepared culturally for democracy than was even France in 1789.  It was once widely understood by conservatives that the habits of democracy are learned over the course of generations.  Conservatives used to believe that only idealistic liberal fools like Woodrow Wilson thought it possible to impose democracy at the point of a gun.

For traditional conservative realists, there was probably no place on earth less susceptible to democracy than Iraq, since it is at its a base a Muslim society – which is notoriously barren soil for democracies to grow in – overlaid with Saddam’s Stalinist-style totalitarianism.    Nevertheless, President George W. Bush, who had campaigned against “nation building” as a candidate, asserted (rather than reasoned), “The nation of Iraq — with its proud heritage, abundant resources and skilled and educated people — is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom.”

Bush’s shaky assertion is under ongoing severe testing.  Unquestionably, the so-called “surge” in Iraq led to great progress.  Sectarian violence is down dramatically and, as this balanced perspective from the Washington Post suggests, Iraqi’s are learning to use ballots instead of violence to pursue political ambitions.  The final outcome of March’s elections remains unresolved.  Remarkably, a democratic nationalist with ties to the CIA – Ayad Allawi – narrowly won the most votes, but thus far he has been unable to form a government.  Meanwhile, the would-be Islamist dictator, Moqtada al-Sadr, gathers strength and waits in the wings.  Ominously, his movement aspires to become the Hamas of Iraq.

The Bush Administration used Saddam Hussein’s brutality as a justification for US intervention in Iraq.   Even many liberals acknowledged the desirability of removing this genocidal thug, who murdered  half a million Iraqis, not counting hundreds of thousands more killed in Saddam’s wars with Iran and with the US-led coalition that liberated Kuwait.   But the George W. Bush-led US war in Iraq has left the blood of over 100,000 Iraqis on our hands too, plus the death of 4419 US soldiers.  In any moral calculation, these and future losses must be weighed in the balance against Saddam’s atrocities.

We are also compelled to consider the ethics of attacking a country that never attacked us.  There is cost here too, and its currency is American values and reputation.

The Bush Administration originally estimated the financial costs of the Iraqi invasion at $60-80 billion.   The real number seven years later is heading north of $750 billion.   These numbers matter as the United States continues down the bipartisan road to bankruptcy.

The democratizing of Iraq is supposed to make Islamic peoples rise up in emulation.  Perhaps the Iraqi example played some role in the now-crushed Iranian civil unrest next door.  But the tangible strategic outcome of the US toppling of Saddam is clear.   By removing the regime of Saddam Hussein the United States destroyed the best counterbalance to an ascendant Iran, now poised to develop nuclear weapons.  Whereas Iranian Shiite sympathizers inside Iraq had been ruthlessly suppressed by Saddam, now they operate freely against the interests of the United States and Bush’s wished-for Iraqi democracy.  It may ultimately prove to be Iran that takes over parts of Iraq.  Which dominoes will ultimately fall, and where, remain to be seen.  Foolish or not, we are stuck playing out the neo-conservatives’ high-risk game in Iraq, and hoping for a victory that is still a long way off.