6 1/2 Years On, the U.S. Mission in Iraq has Only Just Begun

You don't have to take my word for it, but when a career diplomat to the world's most volatile region says so, it certainly warrants a closer look. A few days ago, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker spoke on "Lessons from a Long War" to a Harvard Kennedy School audience, where he emphasized: the importance of historical and geographical competence in order to understand the Middle East; strategic patience when defining goals and commitments; and the relationship between major action and major risk.

While perceptive and insightful, one comment was particularly striking. When it came to Iraq, Ambassador Crocker asserted that 6 1/2 years on, the U.S. commitment is "just getting underway." Shocking, isn't it? With the decision to escalate troops in Afghanistan blanketing the 24-hour news cycle, articles, commentaries, and White House war room discussion, one fundamental question still underpins the veracity concerning U.S. engagement in Iraq: are we ever truly getting out?

From a man who described himself that evening as sitting in the 2nd row--3rd from the left--in each and every photograph of the last quarter century representing major setbacks to U.S. interests in the Middle East, there seems to be a colossal disconnect between the rhetoric and reality of the Obama Administration's strategy to withdraw troop levels in Iraq from 120,000 down to 50,000 by August 2010. And while General Ray Odierno, the commanding military officer in the country, projects a sharp decline in boots on the ground throughout next year, how many tens of thousands of soldiers must remain to ensure a minimum level of stability 10, 20, 50 years down the line? Is it 30,000 troops as is the case of Korea, 50,000 in the case of Japan, 70,000 in the case of Germany, or more? In either case, we are approaching that threshold very quickly. Therefore, if ending the war in Iraq really means de-escalating the effort to a rigid 40, 50, or 60,000 servicemen and women, reaching such a milestone can hardly be classified as an end to the war.

In a country that is only beginning to carve out the proper relationships between federal, regional and provincial governments, the retired diplomat went on to draw a parallel between such national soul-searching with that of the U.S. states rights debate, reminding the audience that "it took us about 87 years to resolve the bloodiest conflict in our history." What is the role of the United States in facilitating this process, and how many decades of engagement does it demand? When discussing a winning strategy in Afghanistan, the elephant in the room we have minimal control over and cleverly ignore, is unquestionably neighboring Pakistan. In the case of Iraq, the discussion about ending the war skillfully ignores the history of large and sustained U.S. troop levels in countries America has invaded.

President Obama's era of engagement is welcomed in the Middle East; the Cairo speech was humble, nuanced, and emblematic of a fresh wave of politicking with the region. However, a militarized foreign policy dating back decades has more relevance now than ever before in a time of re-branding America's standing in the region, for the mere presence of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have arguably inflamed anti-American sentiment around the Muslim world to new heights. Does ending the war really mean ending the war? With the largest and most expensive embassy in the world--the size of Vatican City--built in the heart of Baghdad, one wonders whether withdrawing from Iraq was ever considered an option.

Follow Rahim Kanani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hausercenterjhr

Comments

[Balzac]

People keep mentioning other places which American forces never left. But these places are different geographically and culturally from Iraq or Afganistan.
Germany (Christian, white)
Japan (Islands)
South Korea (Penninsula)
Phillipines (Islands)
Cuba (Islands)
Panama (Narrow, easily fortified)
Hawaii (Islands)

How can you compare an Islamic country on the Arabian Peninsula (Iraq), and an Islamic country in central Asia (Afghanistan) with these places in which our country has kept forces over the span of decades?

Foreign militants, endless resistance, imported weapons weren't a problem for all the other examples. How can our country afford this? This is a recipe for a spectacular collapse. How can President Obama not take advantage of the opportunity of his election to change course from Bush? The country would have elected John McCain if we wanted the occupations to continue.

[pottedferne]

did anybody really think we were going to walk away from the House that Cheney/Runsfeld Built in Iraq....th­e largest most expensive embassy in the world.....­they got rid of Powell as Sec State to put in a puppet that agreed with everything they proposed!!

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

Remember the "Peace Dividend" talk after the collapse of the Soviet Union? That was the real enemy of the Military Industrial Complex.

Meanwhile Obama says public health care reform legislation must include taxes that will cover the increased cost. If he was not just another shill for the big corporations, he would have insisted the military appropriations bill must include taxes to pay for it.

[eileenflemingWAWA]

"For decades, the military built a sense of solidarity out of a singular purpose, the Cold War struggle between free markets and state-planned economies—the shining city on a hill versus the evil empire…meshed neatly with ideologies [that connected] nationalism and fundamenta­lism…Commu­nism…the dark alternative should we fail to unite. Fundamentalism thrived…a neat, black-and-white [theology and] a foreign policy. The end of the Cold War deprived militant evangelicals of that clarity [and] the emergence of “radical Islam” [became] the object of a new Cold War."-Jeff Sharlet in HARPER'S May 2009

"After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel's economy was devastated, but then came 9/11.

"Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry.

"Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion--an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are …precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the "global war on terror.

"Israel's policy of erecting walls and checkpoints to seal off the OT are also laboratories where the terrifying tools of our security states are being field-tested Palestinia­ns--whethe­r living in the West Bank or what Israeli politicians are already calling "Hamasistan"--no longer just targets-they are guinea pigs."

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=860&Itemid=198

[eileenflemingWAWA]

"The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership: intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright

Candidate Obama once admitted if we took the Sermon on the Mount seriously, we would dismantle the Industrial Military Complex.

If every Christian comprehended what Jesus really taught- they would comprehend that God is love and "Love is not the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open cities. Love is not killing...­...Our manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount, which means that we will try to be peacemaker­s." -Dorothy Day

It is "Failures of Intelligence that has reaped the Militarization of Christianity" and perpetuates the insane cycle of violence:

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1267&Itemid=219

The Hescos of Afganastan and the walls in Baghdad are dwarfed by the 30ft high concrete ones in the 'Holy' Land; which is in pieces: Bantustans.

All the builders of these barriers claim that they are democracies and that the walls are all about Security.

All builders of these walls exhibit the same schizophrenic discipline of thinking two contradictory truths at the same time-'doublethink' as Orwell coined it.

[TruthJusticeForAll]

It was NEVER an option.

[marignymitch]

You missed the Washington memo: We're not leaving Iraq, we're not closing Guantanemo, we're escalating in Afghanistan we're continuing uncritical support of Israel

Anything to further enflame followers of Islam.

[MrJoyboy]

The U.S. effort in Iraq and Afghanistan is kind of like a guy jumping into quicksand to capture a rabid dog.

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

But this rabid dog has 300 trillion dollars worth of oil. No doubt the Afghan war is preparation for the conquest of oil rich Iran by positioning forces on both sides of Iran. Note much military equipment in Iraq is due to be moved to Afghanistan (as reported to Congress in the Iraq drawdown plan).

[larry278]

Since the USA has completely bungled its alleged & so called 'mission' in Iraq, Iraq needs somebody to do what the Iraqi people want to be done & do it right. The USA is obliged to pay a more cometent body or persons to do the job correctly at once & keep at this job is done to the complete satisfaction of all of Irag's people who have survived the USA's War of Terror & terrorassed occuption of Iraq.

[larry278]

Another typo: cometent should read competent. My altzheimers seems to be easing now.

[FullChat]

Don't worry about perpetual occupation in Iraq (just Afghanistan).
In the treaty negotiated by Bush, all US troops will leave.

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

Dream on. We are still in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Phillipines, Cuba, Panama, and what used to be part of Mexico. Ask Queen Illiani of Hawaii how the presence of foreign military power worked out for her country.

The American Indians understand the value of 500 treaties signed by the US government.