Five Years and Counting: Ten Unpleasant Truths About the War in Iraq

Full Disclosure: I opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003, because I was convinced that war was unnecessary and would result in a costly, open-ended occupation. Along with several other scholars, I made the case for containment in a number of published articles, speeches, and media appearances. I also helped organize an advertisement opposing the war that appeared in the New York Times in September 2002. I wish we had been wrong; sadly, we turned out to be right. On the 5th anniversary of the invasion, here are ten unpleasant truths about past errors, present circumstances, and future choices.

1. The invasion of Iraq may be the greatest self-inflicted blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy. The case for war rested on false information, dubious assumptions and mendacious analysis. Neoconservatives inside and outside the Bush administration persuaded the president, vice president, and the American people that Saddam was an imminent threat, that war would be easy and pay for itself, and that ousting him would bring far-reaching benefits to the region. They were wrong on all counts, and their responsibility for this catastrophe should not be forgotten.

2. A smarter occupation would not have produced significantly better results. The Bush administration failed to plan the post-war occupation and compounded that error with numerous post-invasion blunders. But the odds were against us from the start, given Iraq's internal divisions and social conditions. Foreign occupiers rarely understand local conditions and usually end up alienating the population, and no society likes being governed by well-armed foreign invaders. The key mistake was the initial decision to invade, the subsequent errors merely made a bad situation worse.

3. The war has done enormous damage to U.S. interests in the Middle East. The invasion destabilized the region and enhanced Iran's influence and strategic position. It also contributed to the unprecedented rise in oil prices, discredited democracy, and further tarnished America's image in the Arab and Islamic world. We cannot escape these consequences until we reverse course. Civil war may occur after we withdraw, but that danger exists whenever we leave. Fortunately, fears of a regional war are exaggerated: because many of Iraq's neighbors depend on oil revenues and have only modest power-projection capabilities, they have good reasons to keep an internal conflict in bounds and little capacity to spread it around the region.

4. The war has been a major setback in the campaign against anti-American terrorism. The war diverted attention and resources from our efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, thereby helping Al Qaeda and the Taliban recover their strength. Iraq has become a new training ground for terrorists, and events like Abu Ghraib have given anti-American elements a potent new weapon in the struggle for hearts and minds.

5. The "surge" has failed as a strategy. Increased U.S. troop strength brought internal violence back down to 2005 levels, but political reconciliation did not occur and the level of violence is now rising. Judged by the administration's own criteria, the strategy has not worked. Current force levels are not sustainable, and prolonging the surge would damage our armed forces further and weaken our global position even more.

6. The United States cannot win the war at an acceptable cost. America's ability to dictate political events in Iraq was never very great and is steadily declining. Iraqis will determine their country's future, not us, and prolonging the U.S. presence will not alter this fact. Although Saddam is gone and Iraq will eventually recover, that result will not have been worth the enormous economic, diplomatic, and human costs we have incurred.

7. The search for scapegoats is already underway. Civilians who now argue that the surge is "working" are trying to pin failure either on Bush's successor, or on those who have opposed the war from the beginning. By claiming that things are improving and that victory is in sight, they are preparing to blame defeat on whoever finally does get us out. But if there is no prospect for a meaningful victory, then staying in Iraq is strategically foolish and a cavalier waste of American lives.

8. The war has done more damage to the armed forces than we know, and rebuilding them will be more difficult, costly, and time-consuming than we realize. U.S. troops have fought bravely and with dedication, and they deserve our gratitude. But the war has undermined overall U.S. readiness, degraded our equipment, and crippled recruitment and retention. The Bush administration has sustained domestic support for the war by concealing the price the armed forces have paid, but the bill will come due soon.

9. The next president faces a stark choice: bring a misguided war to an end, or inherit responsibility for it. For the next President, continuing the occupation means taking ownership of Bush's blunder. If he or she does this, the Iraq quagmire will dominate their presidency and make it harder to focus on other looming challenges, while the costs continue to mount. By getting out quickly, the next President can restore America's freedom of action and begin to rebuild our damaged international position.

10. The Iraq debacle reflects a broader pattern of failure among key American institutions. Although primary responsibility for the war rests with Bush, Cheney, and the neoconservatives who conceived and sold it, other important U.S. institutions performed poorly as well. Congress never debated the war in a serious way and it continued to back Bush's policies long after their failure was apparent. Mainstream media institutions like the New York Times and Washington Post smoothed the path to war by parroting the administration's sales pitch and giving abundant space to pro-war cheerleaders. Even more remarkably, mainstream media organizations continue to rely on the same "talking heads" and inside-the-Beltway pundits whose judgment has proven consistently wrong since 2002. The implication is deeply troubling: if Americans do not learn from this experience and hold those responsible accountable, the Iraq debacle will not be our last.

Read more HuffPost coverage and reaction to the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq

Comments

[JoeC]

Bush is like the belligerent drunk friend who keeps convincing us to let him take the wheel while our vehicle is going 90-to-nothing...and even though our automobile is almost totalled, and the remains of thousands of victims are splattered on the hood and windshield, the passengers just can't find the guts to take the wheel back...

[LizM]

Counterpoint #1: Agreed, the Iraq invasion has probably become the greatest US foreign policy fiasco of all time. As for the case for war...it did not rest on false information, dubious assumptions and mendacious analysis for those few US senators who understood the dynamics of the Saddam situation and what the resolution authorizing the use of US military force in Iraq was really all about. These senators did not believe that Saddam was an imminent threat, nor did they underestimate any of the consequences of war, should that option become the last resort. On the contrary, these Senators were constantly harping about how difficult and long such a war would be and that no such policy could be long sustained without the INFORMED consent of the American people.

Counterpoints #2, #4, #10: Actually, it is hard to disagree with anything here...well said, in fact...on both counts!

Counterpoint #3: Arguing that a civil war may intensify after a US withdrawal, whenever that withdrawal takes place, really misses the point and is reminiscent of any one of the myriad of false choices offered up by the Bush-CHENEY administration. In other words, the options here are not limited to a simple choice between withdrawal or staying the course.

There is a third option, a.k.a. the Biden strategy, that would radically change US policy in Iraq by promoting and facilitating a sustainable political settlement in Iraq based on federalism and the Iraqi constitution. Over the course of the last few years, Senator Biden has developed the only comprehensive and viable strategy to end the civil war in Iraq and withdraw US forces without leaving chaos and a failed state behind.

Anyone who understands the dynamics of Iraq and the region will tell you that if US forces withdraw, in the absence of a sustainable political settlement among the warring Iraqi factions, then there may very well be no possible containment strategy that could hope to prevent a regional conflagration. The region is a veritable tinderbox to begin with.

Counterpoint #5: The surge is a failed TACTIC - it never rose to the level of a strategy or even part of a strategy, for that matter. The question that needs to be debated here is WHY was there no political accommodation. That is fodder for a whole other post!

Counterpoint #6: Of course, the US is in no position to dictate anything to anyone, much less the political future of Iraq to the Iraqis. But that is not to say that US leadership, should it ever materialize, is critical to solving Iraq’s political problems, many of which are a direct result of the completely inept and incompetent conduct of US foreign policy. How’s that for a paradox?! A political solution in Iraq will not spontaneously materialize as the various Iraqi factions miraculously come together, in the midst of a vicious civil war, to engage in tough negotiations to determine their political future and achieve an accommodation that they can all live with. The kind of process and mechanism that would allow such a political settlement to develop will require very competent US leadership, make no mistake about it!

Counterpoint #9: Your stark choice is just another false choice that is as disingenuous as any of those offered up by the Bush-Cheney regime.

[goldhorder]

LizM and the Democratic war mongerers are as delusional as Bush and Cheney. US power is not going to solve this problem Liz. That is what is so difficult for you wanna be Napoleons to believe. Not only will your plan not work. It will make things worse. We will wind up creating separate power centers in Iraq that don't trust one another. It will wind up making the civil war worse when we finally leave. Our global financial leadership is falling apart in front of our eyes. We've lost our manufacturing leadership, we are now losing our financial leadership, our miliatry will be the last leg to fall. You idiots who can't recognize that the USA is not king of the world are the people who brought us here.

[RabidRightRebel]

The thing that most upsets me about the ill-concieved Iraqi invasion is that it distracted us from El Qaeda. The reason that we were not attack after 9/11 was because El Qaeda was made up of a few hundred fanatics that had been trained in the mountains of Afghanistan. While they had been successfull in their most daring operation, they could have been almost completly eliminated if we had maintained our focus. But no Bush and his rabid right friends had to attack Iraq. No only did the war in Iraq act as a recruiting tool for El Qaeda it also gave them time to regroup and expand. As a result the threat from El Qaeda is greater than it has ever been. What we need to do now is refocus on El Qaeda and fight them on their home ground.

[ajax2]

Hillary again claims that GW Bush brought freedom to Iraq and not death and destruction.

Hillary Clinton, "And I believe that at the same time that we have to make clear to the Iraqis that they have been given the greatest gift that a human being can give another human being – the gift of freedom. And it is up to them to decide how they will use that precious gift that has been paid for with the blood and sacrifice and treasure of the United States of America."

Hillary supporters, do you believe GW Bush gave Iraq the gift of freedom?

[DoninJoisey]

Allow me to shoot a hole in the argument first heard from Condescending Rice...

"We must be doing something right because we haven't been attacked since 9/11"

1) They're killing us in Iraq so they don't have to kill us here.

2) the World Trade Center was bombed in '93, NOTHING was done, and we weren't attacked for 8 years.

Iraq is about OIL. Kucinich and Ron Paul spoke up about it. It's the 800 pound gorilla in the room - OIL - it's why Iran is in the crosshairs, too, but Aghanistan and Pakistan are ignored.