The nine-year-long war in Iraq is officially over. Frankly, I’m fine with that. I think the one lesson we need to have learned from both Iraq and Afghanistan is the meaning of punitive raid or punitive action. If a country attacks us or otherwise deserves to see the “blunt instrument” of national policy used, we need to go in and do what is necessary, and then leave.
For whatever reason, we’ve chosen nation building as an end state instead. And while I certainly understand the theory (and the examples where it has worked … such as Japan, West Germany, etc.), it shouldn’t be something we do on a routine basis.
There were certainly valid reasons to do what we did in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And while I supported both actions, the decision to try to build a democracy in both countries has been expensive in both blood and treasure and I’d deem it somewhat successful in Iraq (we’ll see if they can keep it) and at best marginally successful in Afghanistan (where I fully expect the effort to collapse when we withdraw).
So I’m fine with folding the flag and leaving Iraq. And before the Obamabots try to claim it was their man who finally made it happen, Google it. This is the Bush plan, negotiated before he left office and simply executed by this administration. That said, Obama will shamelessly try to take credit for it, while also trying to erase the memory of voting not to fund the war while troops were engaged in combat.
It is going to be interesting to see how Iraq turns out. It is an extraordinarily volatile country, sitting right next to two other nations that are waging religious war against each other by proxy. Saudi Arabia and Iran are deadly enemies, and with the end of the U.S. presence there, I think Iraq will end up being their battleground.
Within a few months I think there will be concerted campaigns of violence aimed at toppling the current government and installing some flavor of Islamist regime there. I hope I’m wrong.
But again, that bottom line—I’m happy to see this chapter draw to a close. I’m glad we’re getting our troops out of Iraq; it’s time. And to them all, a huge “well done.”
Welcome home.
Richard McEnroe on December 15, 2011 at 11:18 am said:
You’re too impatient.
The war wasn’t over when we pulled out of Vietnam. It was another two years before we could finish screwing the Vietnamese and Cambodians. Give it time.
Nearly two thirds of a century after VE Day, we still have troops in Europe, even though those were organized, First World countries. We’ll have to see if nine years is enough to give the Iraqis a fighting chance to build a viable nation; it plainly wasn’t enough for France, Greece, Italy, Spain…