The U.S. prepares to leave Iraq

What happened

President Obama this week promised to meet his Aug. 31 deadline for ending combat operations in Iraq, saying the U.S. had nearly completed a massive drawdown of 90,000 troops and a transfer of security operations to Iraq. In a speech to the Disabled American Veterans, Obama said 50,000 U.S. troops—down from a 2007 peak of 175,000—would remain in Iraq until the end of 2011, when they, too, would be withdrawn. Hundreds of military bases have been closed or transferred to the Iraqis. “The hard truth is we have not seen the end of American sacrifice in Iraq,” the president said. “But make no mistake, our commitment in Iraq is changing—from a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats.”

Departing U.S. troops leave behind a country still struggling with bitter sectarian divisions, rampant corruption, and terrorism. Nearly five months after national elections, Iraqi factions haven’t agreed on a new government, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is desperately scrambling to stay in power; with the holy month of Ramadan beginning in mid-August, the impasse may not be resolved until the fall. Meantime, car bombs and assaults on police checkpoints punctuate Iraqi routines, and government services are faltering; electricity is available in Baghdad only five hours every day. “Right now,” said Ayad Allawi, a Sunni-backed candidate still vying to become prime minister, “if you ask any Iraqi, ‘What do you think of democracy?’ they will say it’s blood, stagnation, unemployment, refugees, cheating.”

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What the editorials said

“What kind of Iraq are American troops leaving?” said the Chicago Tribune. It looks like a “nation progressing—in fits and starts—toward political stability and economic prosperity.” Obama never believed in this war, but he earned “this victory lap by taking political heat from the Democratic left and staying the Bush course,” said The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. “paid a substantial price in life and treasure to replace an aggressive tyranny,” and despite Iraq’s many problems, Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds are now free to complain about their leaders in “the Arab world’s freest democracy.”

“One down, one to go,” said the San Francisco Chronicle. By withdrawing U.S. troops and shifting the “burden of security” to Iraqis, Obama is easing the strain on our overstretched military. But as troop numbers decline in Iraq, they rise in Afghanistan, where 96,000 U.S. soldiers will be in place by next month. With Democrats “turning cold” on Afghanistan, the president’s next challenge will be to find a graceful exit from that conflict, too.

What the columnists said

Let’s not delude ourselves, said Joe Klein in Time.com. “There is no victory in Iraq, nor will there be.” After a horribly bloody and expensive war “promulgated by a gale of ignorance at best and chicanery at worst,” we’ve created a tottering, quasi-democratic government that may soon fall to military coup or morph into a Shiite dictatorship. Our departure from the chaotic aftermath of our meddling is a moment “for humility in the face of a national disaster.” It’s now clear that Bush’s “much vaunted surge” achieved nothing of lasting value, said Stephen M. Walt in ForeignPolicy.com. “We will have spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of lives in order to bring to power an unstable government” more closely allied with Iran than with the U.S. “Americans don’t like losing,’’ and if Iraq dissolves into civil war, “Obama is going to get blamed.’’

If that happens, Obama fully deserves the blame, said Kori Schake in NYTimes.com. It was his politically expedient idea to announce an arbitrary withdrawal timetable, which only “increased the volatility of Iraqi politics at the very time Iraq needed our steady engagement.” By signaling that we’re leaving “no matter what,” we’ve increased Iran’s leverage, and squandered our influence over what happens next.

Actually, we’ve finally come to our senses, said Matt Steinglass in Economist.com. The promise to “jump-start a democratic revolution throughout the Middle East” was as fantastical as those weapons of mass destruction. Fortunately, Iraq appears to be “a mistake from which some lessons have been learned.” America won’t soon return “to fantasies of easy conquest and democracy-building.”