Iraq: What was gained, what was lost

The last U.S. convoy rolled out of Iraq this week, said Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times, and though the battle-weary troops were certainly glad to be heading home, “no one even tried to use the word ‘victory.’” Welcoming home soldiers at Fort Bragg, N.C., President Obama used the hedged term “a moment of success,” and congratulated them on leaving behind an Iraq “that is self-governing, that is inclusive, and that has enormous potential.” But after nine bloody years of war, some 4,500 U.S. troops dead, more than 33,000 wounded and maimed, and nearly $1 trillion spent, many Americans question whether our achievements in Iraq were worth the staggering cost. What did we really buy with all that blood and treasure? said Tony Karon in Time​.com. No sooner had the last U.S. troops left Iraq than Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the arrest of Iraq’s Sunni vice president because of an alleged bomb plot, and sought to fire the Sunni deputy prime minister. Maliki may well be morphing into just another repressive, sectarian dictator—Saddam lite—and the new Iraq we sacrificed so much to create faces a “dark, divided future.”

Regardless of what happens now in Iraq, said Gary Kamiya in Salon.com, this war was one of the biggest mistakes in U.S. history. It was “launched under false pretenses” by the Bush administration, which exploited the nation’s post-9/11 fears and manufactured evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Between 150,000 and 400,000 Iraqis were killed in the war and the bungled occupation and civil war that followed, and another 1.3 million were displaced from their homes. And what did their losses—and ours—produce? A destabilized Middle East, a newly emboldened and empowered Iran, and “widespread hatred of the U.S.”

You’re wrong, said Oliver North in FoxNews.com. Our troops “fought a long and difficult campaign—not for gold or oil or colonial conquest, but to offer others the hope of freedom.” And “they won,” beating back violent challenges from insurgents and al Qaida jihadists. Iraq is still a dangerous place, make no mistake. But thanks to the patience and tenacity of the U.S. military, particularly in training up the 750,000 members of Iraq’s own security forces, “it is far safer to be a civilian in Iraq today than it is in Mexico.” We’re also leaving behind a giant U.S. Embassy and 16,000 contractors and State Department personnel, which is not good news for the power-hungry ayatollahs next door in Iran.

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“Whether we ‘won’ the war in Iraq remains an unsettled question,” said Fred Kaplan in Slate.com. The Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds are still bitterly divided by issues of “power, wealth, and identity.” In coming months and years, we’ll find out if the nation’s political structures can handle those differences, or if the factions will “revive their armed struggles in the streets.” Either way, said Andrew Bacevich in The Washington Post, the Iraq war has provided a stark demonstration of the “limits of American power.” Bush and his aides launched the war to remind the world that despite 9/11, the U.S. “still called the tune to which history marched.” But in Iraq and Afghanistan, our matchless military could not create the liberal democracies of neocon fantasies. We leave these killing fields having buried our faith in “permanent American supremacy” in unmarked graves. That is the war’s final legacy.