The Iraqi Parliament has just passed a resolution calling for all American troops -– there are now 5,000 in Iraq — to be withdrawn from the country. I quite agree. We should never have entered Iraq in the first place, but left Saddam, monstrous as he was, as a counterweight to the just as monstrous, and much more dangerous, regime of Shi’a clerics in Iran. The Iran-Iraq War lasted from 1980 to 1988, and for those years both countries’ aggressive energies were focused on each other. From the viewpoint of Unbelievers, that war – which petered out in a stalemate — should have gone on forever.
In 2003, once the decision had been made by the U.S. to enter Iraq and destroy Hussein’s regime, and that goal had been accomplished, with the capture of Saddam, whom the Iraqis subsequently executed, the killing of his two sons Uday and Qusay, and the capture by the Americans of almost all of the 52 leading members of his regime who were then turned over to the Iraqis, we had done what we had initially sent out to do. We had removed a monstrous regime. But mission creep led us to do still more, to help Iraq conduct its first democratic election – with millions of Iraqis holding up their purple thumbs to proudly show that they had voted. And even that wasn’t enough: we decided to spend billions on infrastructure projects to help the Iraqis to a better life. But we stayed until 2011, hoping that the government in Baghdad would finally offer good and stable government. It was not to be. The Americans discovered that the Shi’a and Sunnis were bitter rivals for political power and the economic benefits that flowed from that power, while the Kurds had their own desires, to keep and if possible enlarge, the autonomy they had enjoyed under American protection, for many years. The Sunnis were not about to acquiesce in their loss of political power after Saddam’s regime collapsed, and the Shi’a were not about to relinquish the power that they had at long last acquired through elections (because the Shi’a constituted 60% of the population, three times that of the Sunni Arabs). The politicians are fighting still over how to share power in Baghdad, a conflict that continues without any foreseeable end.
The Shi’a Arabs in Iraq are not only much more numerous than the Sunni Arabs, but possess several different militias; some of those militias receive money, weapons, and training from Iran, while still others are nationalist in nature and resent Iran’s presence in Iraq. The Western press reported that in Baghdad the Shi’a were out in force, lamenting the death of Soleimani, beating their chests, and calling for revenge against America. There were such crowds, but there were also – and this was not reported in the mainstream media –many Shi’a expressing their delight at the killing of Qasem Soleimani. These Shi’a are Iraqi nationalists, who resent the interference of Iran in Iraqi affairs.
And there were other crowds of Sunnis in Iraq who celebrated the news of Soleimani’s death, shouting their approval, handing out sweets. His disappearance has not brought the country together against the Americans, but split it even further than it already was, between those who were crying and those who were laughing at the news of Soleimani’s killing.
The meeting of the Iraqi Parliament that demanded the withdrawal of all remaining American forces in Iraq was not, it should be noted, representative of all groups in Iraq. Both the Kurds and Sunni Arabs chose to boycott this session. It was not “Iraq” telling the Americans to leave, but the “Iraqi Shi’a” demanding a full American withdrawal.
That’s a demand that we should be happy to honor.
For in truth, Iraq has proved to be a great waste of American resources – men, money, materiel — ever since our invasion in 2003. We removed a dictator who was a useful bulwark against the Islamic Republic. We then decided that the removal of Saddam was not enough; that we should create democracy in Iraq. No one in Washington considered what the outcome of such a democracy would almost certainly be — a Shi’a-dominated country with close ties to Iran. The Shi’a were enthusiastic participants in the election, while the Sunnis took part with great reluctance, for they knew what the outcome would mean. There is now constant horse-trading in Baghdad, between Arabs and Kurds, Sunnis and Shi’a, but not any sense of a unified nation. The Americans did not understand how antipathetic Islam is to the Western notion of democracy. In the democratic West, a government’s legitimacy depends on how well that government reflects the will of the people, as expressed in elections. In Islam, a government owes its legitimacy to how well it reflects the will of Allah, as expressed in the Qur’an.
There are two possible responses to this demand from Iraq’s dimidiated Parliament. One is to point out that the Kurds and Sunnis in Iraq were not represented in Parliament for that vote, and that while American forces are nowhere to be found in the Shi’a south, including Baghdad (a mixed-city but in a Shi’a dominated area), it should be up to the local populations in the north – the Kurds and Sunnis who were the very people not present in Parliament for the vote – to decide if they want the 5,000 American troops assigned to northern Iraq to remain, in order to help suppress any re-emergence of the Islamic State, and any threat, too, from Iranian-backed militias. Such an agreement with the Kurds and Sunnis, and a rejection of a decision by the Shi’a-only Parliament, would contribute to fracturing the Iraqi state into three parts, roughly akin to the three Ottoman vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra, that the British spatchcocked together to create modern Iraq.
The benefits of such an arrangement are that Iran would not be able to spread its tentacles throughout northern Iraq and into Syria with those American troops present, and would be able to control only southern Iraq through local militias, where they already prevail. The continued presence of American troops in the north might encourage the Kurds to move from American-protected autonomy to an independent Kurdistan. Morally, such a state deserves to exist. The 35 to 40 million Kurds are the largest people in the world without a state. An independent Kurdistan carved out of northern Iraq, armed by, and to some extent protected by, the Americans, would be a great worry for the other countries with significant Kurdish populations – Syria, Iran, and Turkey. These all happen to be troublemaking enemies of the U.S. Syria, with a particularly murderous regime, is an ally of both Iran and Russia, and an enemy of the U.S. Turkey is still, ever more disconcertingly, a member of NATO, but under Erdogan, the country has been rapidly re-islamizing, and the neo-Ottoman dreams of Recep Tayyip Erdogan include the creation of a pan-Islamic army to destroy Israel. No friend of the West, Erdogan richly deserves to have a Kurdish threat re-kindled in his Anatolian heartland. As for Iran, America’s mortal enemy, a Kurdish independence movement in western Iran, encouraged by the existence of an independent Kurdistan in what had been northern Iraq, would be worrisome for the ayatollahs, both in and of itself, and because of how it might also prompt other separatist movements in Iran, including those of the Arabs in Khuzestan Province, where much of Iran’s oil is produced, the Sunni Baluchis in Iran’s far east, and the Azeris in northwest Iran, who are between 25%-40% of the population, and some of whom have shown an interest in breaking away to become part of Azerbaijan, given the way many Azeris have been treated by the Persians, which is captured in the phrase “Torki khar” (Turkish donkey), used by Persians in reference to Azeris, whom they regard as the “brawn” of the Iranian economy to be ordered about by Persian “brains.”
An independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq, protected by American forces , would thus be the single most effective instrument to weaken from within, and simultaneously, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran – all states that are, in various degrees, our enemies. It would require the American government to ignore Iranian and Iraqi threats, and upon the request of Iraqi Kurds, to station troops, even more than the 5,000 now there, in the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq. Those troops would have a twofold purpose: both to protect the Kurds and to suppress any reappearance of the Islamic State.
While there is much to be said for such an outcome, there is even more to be said for the other possible course of action: leaving Iraq, period. That means the Americans should accept the demand of the Shi’a parliament (boycotted by Kurds and Sunni Arabs) in Baghdad, for the prompt removal of their remaining 5,000 troops. Iraq is indeed the “ungrateful volcano” that Winston Churchill once called it. We have spent so very much, and accomplished so very little, in that country, but not for want of trying. We did get rid of Saddam Hussein, his sons, and his collaborators, who were part of a grim game of 52-pickup, invented by the U.S. military, where the faces of the 52.most important men in the regime were put on cards, and those cards widely distributed; almost all of the 52 were eventually picked up by the Americans. We also stage-managed, several elections, though Western democracy never took hold. We did spend trillions to improve life in Iraq. The latest vote in Iraq’s Parliament, demanding that we leave Iraq, all because we killed someone responsible for the deaths of more than 600 Americans and was plotting imminent attacks on still more Americans, indicates how little gratitude we have received.
Saddam Hussein was not only a threat to his own people. He was also a threat to Iran. And Iran has turned out to be a much more dangerous enemy of the U.S. in the Middle East than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq ever was. We were wrong not to recognize his value in containing Iran. We tried to help fashion a quasi-decent government in Iraq. But we were insufficiently aware of the depth of hatred between Sunnis and Shi’a. Nor did we understand how adept the Iraqi politicians would turn out to be at siphoning off so much of the aid we lavished on that country. The American government spent trillions in Iraq, on both a massive military presence from 2003 to 2011, and on infrastructure projects to improve the lot of the people. During all this time, colossal corruption and mismanagement by the Iraqis in Baghdad have ensured the failure of those well-meaning efforts to help Iraq onto its feet. Having been told to leave, let’s do so, in a spirit of relief that we can now bid goodbye to that “ungrateful volcano.”
What will such a withdrawal of the 5,000 troops we sent to northern Iraq in 2015 do for the projection of American power against Iran? Nothing. The removal of those 5,000 troops will not lessen American pressure on Iran. Advanced drones, precision-guided missiles, and bombers can now deliver all the destruction the Pentagon wants or needs to inflict on Iran and its proxies. And if the Islamic State reappears? Let the Iran-backed Shi’a militias in Iraq, and Iranian troops, too, deal with that problem all by themselves; after all, according to the Islamic State, the Shi’a are the “worst sort of Infidels.” In the absence of the Americans, who proved so helpful before in fighting ISIS, the Iranians will have to devote many more resources of their own, and take more casualties, in staving off the fanatics of ISIS who will be trying to re-establish their “caliphate” in Iraq. That’s not a bad thing, to tie Iran down fighting the Islamic State, just as it was tied down for eight years fighting Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Let the fellow fanatics fight for as long as it takes for both sides to lose.
Meanwhile, the Americans can turn the screws ever tighter on Iran’s economy, which is already on the ropes. And as President Trump has said, any harm Iran now does to Americans, American interests, and American allies (Israel, Saudi Arabia) in the region, will be met with overwhelming force, with 52 targets in Iran already having been selected for such a massive reprisal. For all Iran’s huffing and puffing, it doesn’t dare trigger that response. There might be a handful of small cyberattacks, or they might lob a few missiles at an American base in Iraq, making sure not to kill anyone, but not much more by way of response to Soleimani’s killing. Behind their bluster, Iranian leaders are scared of Trump.
The resulting multilateral murderousness among Muslims should be a welcome spectacle, with America no longer determined to “bear any burden, pay any price.” Been there, done that. In Iraq as in Afghanistan, it didn’t work out. In northern Iraq, there will remain the constant threat of a revived Islamic State. Elsewhere in Iraq, the Shi’a – the “worst of the Infidels” for ISIS — will remain the most threatened by those Islamic State fighters, pushing southward, where they will hope to conquer the Shi’a and spread the uber-Sunni caliphate all the way to the Persian Gulf. The Kurds in northern Iraq can sit this one out, leaving it to the Shi’a militias, and to Iranian troops in Iraq, to fight the Islamic State, while the Kurds husband their resources, and perhaps take delivery of arms from America or Israel. Let the Iranians and their Iraqi proxies fight Daesh until both sides have exhausted each other. Ideally, that will not happen for many years to come.
mortimer says
Nature abhors a vacuum. A vacuum will be filled. The most likely filler for Iraq is Iranian Shi’ite troops. A retreat by NATO from Iraq would lead to Iran being able to impose its will on Iraq. The Iran’s mullahs think of Iraq as their client state or something even closer.
FDR said about a Nicaraguan military dictator.
Sadam was a Sunnite Muslim, a member of the minority Muslim group in Iraq. Sadam produced stability through repression. He was seeking weapons to target Israel.
gravenimage says
Mortimer, the problem is that the main thing filling that vacuum in Iraq is always going to be Islam. We can never civilize this place.
Clifford Fodor says
We haven’t even tried. All we have done is invade a few countries, occupy it for a little while, and then we want to leave. We made it worse than it was before. Places like Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq use to have dictatorship or even (Russian) democracy like in Afghanistan. Now those three countries have constitutions in which Islam is the state religion. We think “nation building” are bad words. Where have we tried nation building? We brought Playboy Magazines to the Middle East. But when a box of Bibles arrived from the US, the US Army was ordered to burn them.
Jeffrey Sams says
Amen! I think that the best thing we can do to salvage something from the mess of Iraq is promote an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq and support Christian efforts there while we’re at it. I think the Kurds would be receptive to such efforts at this time. Recognize their independence, arm them to the teeth, and keep training and supplying the peshmerga. They deserve that much from us.
Infidel says
Clifford
You are talking about completely transforming countries from what they were to something that the occupying army would want them to be. The only model where that has any chance of success is when the occupying army heavily outnumbers the local population, like the Han Chinese have managed in both Tibet and Xinxiang
For the US to pull off the same thing in Iraq or Afghanistan, we would have had to settle something like 40 million Americans in Iraq and 30 million Americans in Afghanistan. Something that the US has historically never done. Even when we seized from Spain the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines and Guam, we did not settle those places w/ Americans and make them like Hawaii, and those would have been a lot easier. In Iraq or Afghanistan, such an experiment is out of question.
Yeah, we f’ed up badly by helping those countries write constitutions that embed Shariah law, and include death penalties for apostasy. Really speaking, Afghanistan was won when the Taliban lost Kandahar and Kabul, and Mullah Omar disappeared, while Iraq was one the day Saddam’s statue was pulled down. Those were the times the US troops should have been pulled out, instead of installing L Paul Bremmer and Zalmay Khalilzad as ‘viceroys’.
gravenimage says
Clifford Fodor wrote:
We haven’t even tried.
……………….
Clifford, I think the idea that we could invade the entire Muslim world and wipe out Islam is–besides everything else–rather unrealistic.
We were almost entirely safe from Jihad when Islam was largely isolated. I think this is the best policy.
Charles Ford says
Who cares what Muslims do to each other I for one certainly don’t America has no business being in a rock in the things that we’ve done there are Beyond terrible there is no Redeeming Grace in any of this leave immediately America’s only interest in the Middle East would be to protect those remaining Christians that are still there and also to join with Israel we have no other strategic purpose for being in The Ragin let the Muslims kill each other to Hell Freezes Over
Carolyne says
Kind of like being between a rock and a hard place?
mortimer says
correction: FDR said about a Nicaraguan military dictator, ‘He may be a bastard, but he’s our bastard.’ Sadam was not owned by the US and was working against US interests.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Was Saddam working against U.S. interests when he invaded Iran, and fought Iran from 1980 to 1988, in a war that used up men, materiel, money, and morale on both sides?
J D.S says
If we had left Saddam alone…Iran would now be under his control…agreed he was a BAAAAADDDDDd guy but sometimes one has to USE the bad in order for the GOOD to overcome.
Infidel says
No, Saddam ended the war w/ Iran in 1988 when he was convinced that he couldn’t win, and in 1991, invaded Kuwait. The latter was what turned the US against him. Although looking at Kuwaiti attitudes towards the US today, I often wonder whether we should have just let him keep his 19th province: it’s not like the al-Sabahs are a positive influence in the region like, say, the Hashemites in Jordan or the junta in Cairo
Infidel says
During the 80s, the US had allies on both sides. On one hand, Egypt used its support for Iraq to get back into the good graces of the Arab League, which had expelled it following Camp David. On the other hand, Israel decided to support Iran knowing that Saddam was planning to build a nuke arsenal w/ which to target Israel
JHL says
The problem is Islam. The pernicious ideology is the issue. 275,000,000,000 people slayed in the name of Islam during its 1400 year reign of terror.
Oldone says
You’ve got a few too many zeros, there….
Roderick MacUalraig says
He was trying. Would’ve been nice to see him thank you for that correction.
Still, 275 mil is quite a stack of bodies, as I’m sure you’d agree.
Pisslam is tyranny and genocide.
Oldone says
I thought, at the time, that Saddam and his henchmen, were a useful bulwark against Islamic shenanigans, by Iran, and any other offshoots…It would appear, that I was right…Pull our people out of Iraq, and let them kill each other…They’ve been doing exactly that, for 1,400 years…
Roderick MacUalraig says
I disagree. We need to stay involved. A lot of jobs and offense industry companies’s profits and 401s depend on continued warfare, you see.
What with all the religious division over there to be exploited it’s the perfect place for never ending combat ops.
Why would you want to pull out?
You’re not a team player, Oldone.
Get onboard.
gravenimage says
More sneering from Roderick MacUalraig, I see.
Infidel says
So Hugh, what do you think about the president’s demand that they compensate us for building that billion dollar al-Assad Air base (the same one that was attacked by Iran last night), or else face sanctions that would make the Iran sanctions look tame?
I would see that as a win-win-win solution – if we did all of the above – removed our troops, squeeze Iraq for whatever the war in Iraq has cost us, and sanction them if they fall short. Also, agree w/ Iran to blockade the Straits of Hormuz, which will take Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Bahreini and Qatari oil out of circulation (not sure about Saudi or Emirati oil: depends on whether the Saudis have any Red Sea oil ports (Jeddah doesn’t seem to be one of them) and whether the Emirates have any ports on the Gulf of Oman, as opposed to the Arabian Gulf. All their customers would be forced to turn to either the US or Russia for their oil, and usually, once such arrangements are made, they’re not trivial to undo. That should turn off the cash flow to these Islamic countries, and slow down the financial energy fueling world dawa and jihad efforts.
On the other things you wrote, I largely agree. Actually, Arab Shias in Iraq would be split b/w pro-Iranians groups and other groups more alied to the Khuzestani Arab Shias in South-West Iran, and it would be fun to see a battle b/w them. As it is, Teheran has been struggling to keep its population subdued, and it would be fun to see Kurds, Arabs and Balochis revolt, w/ a Balochi revolt in Iran hopefully inspiring one in West Pakistan. It would be even harder for Iran to even support the Houthis or Hizbullah, much less do anything against Israel.
Also, in the meantime, Turkey is busy asserting itself, and it would be fun to see them having to battle their own Kurds even while they fight to gain control of Syria. And w/ US troops totally out of the region, Turkey and Russia, which have disparate interests, won’t be allies. As it is, in Syria, it’s a battle b/w Assad and Turkish backed militias. Then, on the Armenia-Azerbaijan issue, Armenia is a client state of Russia, while Azerbaijan is allied to Turkey. However, being a Shi’ite country, if Turkey makes Islam a criteria for which to gather around it, Azerbaijan might find Iran, whose north west is another Azerbaijan, just as attractive.
The only downside would be that the Sunni Arabs would be left pretty strong, particularly in the Gulf states, and that I’m not too thrilled about. Which is why I’m not rooting for regime change in Iran
In the meantime, I’m just as big a fan of pulling troops out of Afghanistan, and bombing Taliban depots while leaving. Let Pakistan, Tajikistan and Iran sort it out
Kepha says
Actually, Iran backed Armenia in the NagornoKarabagh dispute–een though many of the leading Iranian mullahs are ethnic Azeri Turks.
Infidel says
Ah, that would explain why Azerbaijan prefers Turkey to Iran. Also, the reason Iran may have picked Armenia could have been that they didn’t wanna be at odds w/ both the US and Russia.
But as a result, they lost a possible Shi’a ally. If they had backed Baku, both Turkic-but-Shi’a Azerbaijan as well as Farsi-but-Sunni Tajikistan would have been Iranian allies
Jayme says
If the west is kicked out fine but that means we ban all refugees from Iran/Iraq.
Anna Yelena says
None of these Muslims entering the Western countries are refugees, they’re invaders who will breed to destabilize the natives and make the countries Islamic. Ban all Muslims from entering period.
James Lincoln says
Anna Yelena says,
“Ban all Muslims from entering period.”
Agree -100%.
gravenimage says
U.S. Out of Iraq? By All Means
……………..
God knows we can’t civilize this Muslim crap hole.
I just hope we offer persecuted Iraqi Christians sanctuary here.
gravenimage says
And Yezidis as well.
Bjorn says
Yes! Good speech. I agree – Let the Iranians and their Iraqi proxies fight Daesh until both sides have exhausted each other. Ideally, that will not happen for many years to come.
The Kurds deserve our help and support. Let’s stay with them, help and support them! They need their own county!
Mural says
Hugh, Very Insightful piece. Kudos.
It made me think about two things :
A) Always think of 2nd and 3rd order effects of our actions ( even successful ones!)
B) No point in forcing our world view on people who are used to something else: Democracy in this case or on expecting rational behavior from left wing zealots. It won’t happen…
GreekEmpress says
+1000
Excellent article, Mr. Fitzgerald.
My compliments, sir!
No Muzzies Here says
I opposed the war in Iraq from the start. Deposing Saddam destabilized the area, which eventually led to the rise of Islamic State.
Huh!?! says
Agreed. Time to go.
awake says
Hussein was bluffing on the WMDs to keep Iran at bey. Bush used marginal intelligence to vanquish a dictator. The true folly was the misplaced moral imperative of nation building a country that Bush himself broke.
We have not had a valid military objective which would require boots on the ground in the ME in many, many years. There is none going forward.
The Sunnis and Shiites will always be at odds. They always have been. Nothing can or will change that. Their only common ground is their hatred for Israel and the US.
Trump is correct to withdraw as much as possible from the whole godforsaken region.
OLD GUY says
I agree to withdraw, but take are military equipment and destroy everything we have built. If we can’t take it with us destroy it, or they will use it against us later.
Carolyne says
I agree with Mr. Fitzgerald. We have no strategic interests in the middle East and never did. Both wars with Iraq were a waste of wealth, equipment and most of all Americans who were killed defending the indefensible. IMO not one thousand Muslim barbarians are worth one American life. I think the first war was the senior Bush’s favor to his pals, the Saudis and the second was because Bush the younger was angry because Saddam was threatening the life of Bush the elder when he visited Kuwait. And we all know that “Nobody threatens my daddy and gets away with it.”. And the ironic thing is that the 9/11 tragedy was planned and executed by Saudis, probably with the collusion of the Saudi government. Further, it was disgraceful for the US to be party to the horrendous putting to death of Saddam Hussein and while I’m at it, Hillary Clinton’s personal war in Libya and Khadafy’s equally horrendous death. OK I probably spelled that name incorrectly but I don’t care. There is still chaos in Libya and in fact, the whole region courtesy of Hussein Obama and his stooge, Hillary Clinton. In fact, a pox on all your houses. Kill each other, please. Sunnis and Shias, go at it.
Roderick MacUalraig says
I agree.