Withdrawal of US troops from Iraq: A misguided war

Photo: wikishoof.info

On 21st October, President Barack Obama declared the last US troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year, signalling the official close to one of the longest, most politically contentious wars in his country's history and its attempt to democratise the Middle East with military might. Declaring the "tide of war is receding", Obama and other administration officials sought to portray the move as an honourable completion of a long and difficult mission, and part of a broader shift away from direct US military involvement not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan and Libya as well. Barack Obama promised the remaining 40,000 US troops would be "home for the holidays", fulfilling a campaign pledge but also acceding to the reality of a depleted treasury and overwhelming US public opinion. It also reflected the political fact that Iraq demanded an end to the US presence.
Prior to the war, former US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld repeatedly suggested the war in Iraq would be short and swift. He said, "The Gulf War in the 1990s lasted five days on the ground. I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that." Persuaded by Cheney, Rumsfeld and Paul Wilfowitz, former President Bush launched the war against Iraq on March 19, 2003, after declaring Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction and had forged links with al-Qaeda terrorists. Both claims were later widely deemed to be false. Told they would be greeted as liberators, US forces instead found themselves fighting a violent insurgency.
It gave new meaning to the term "mission accomplished", which was emblazoned on a banner behind President George W. Bush as he welcomed home a returning aircraft carrier in May 2003, six weeks after the war had begun and when victory seemed at hand. That war continued until 2011.President Bush's valedictory visit to Iraq will perhaps be remembered for the unscripted moment when at a joint press briefing in Baghdad on 14h December 2008, an Iraqi journalist, Muntadar al-Zaidi (28) hurled shoe at him shouting in Arabic: "This is a gift from Iraqis: This is the farewell kiss, you dog." That shoe narrowly missed Bush as he ducked.
Rumsfeld acknowledges in the book (February 2011) that he regrets saying "stuff happens" about looting in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion. He would also like to take back his "we know where they are" comment about the never-found weapons of mass destruction. Despite such comments, Rumsfeld does not apologize for his handling of the war and believes it was the right call. Rumsfeld writes that the failures in the first year of the Iraq war can be chalked up to indecisiveness on how to manage the postwar period. The Pentagon wanted to hand over power quickly to an interim Iraqi authority of former exiles while the State Department wanted a slower transition to allow time for new leaders to rise. "There were far too many hands on the steering wheel, which, in my view, was a formula for running the truck into a ditch," Rumsfeld writes in the book.
Eight years later, the war is ending after taking the lives more than 4,400 Americans, most of them killed after the initial invasion. Estimates of the Iraqi dead would start at 100,000 and hundreds and thousands are displaced. The middle class, the main pillar of democratic society, has been totally destroyed by the devastating war in the country.
In Iraq, a war-weary population appears happy to see the US leave. An Iraqi political analyst, Haider Saeed, said the desire to see the US troops depart was part of a prevalent culture of "antagonism" towards Washington, a legacy of the years of bloodshed.
The soldiers will leave behind a Shi'ite-dominated Iraq, still beset by sectarian violence and teetering closer to its neighbour, Iran, a bitter US foe. The Iraq war will be remembered as a stubborn, shifting campaign to restructure a tribal society. The Iraq war has given rise to sectarianism which appears to be a totally new game in the Arab World, and is different from the conflict between the radical Arab nationalists and the conservative pan-Islamists of the late 50s and 60s. A growing number of Iraq experts believe sectarianism may lead to disintegration of Iraq in the long run, while others say that a con-federal Iraq might emerge. The question is whether the Sunnis will accept a con-federal country without oil resources. Many suggest a plan to carve the country into three regionsKurdish in the north, Sunnis in the middle and Shiites in the south. Both the north and south regions are oil-rich while the middle is bereft of such resources.
A few strategists say that the dissolution of Iraq will be a great boon for security of Israel. Jews at the beginning of the 20th century wanted to create many small states which would be unthreatening to Israel. If Iraq's disintegration takes place, their wishes would be fulfilled.
Michael Hudson, a Professor of Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington reportedly has stated that "What we are seeing now may be signs of things to come, but that was not so much inevitable as it is a result of our action."

The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.