It's been seven years since United States and coalition forces invaded Iraq.
The principal rationale for the war - Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction - was based on poor if not manipulated intelligence, but there were
ancillary rationales of building democracy in the Middle East and increasing US
national security. These other rationales might be usefully assessed now as the
passions of the conflict have eased and an exit is near.
Democracy in Iraq
Many of the architects of the war envisioned a swift transition to a democratic
government in Iraq. Neo-conservative think-tanks had tossed the idea about for
several years in the 1990s and when
George W Bush became president in 2001 many of their advocates became eager
policymakers.
The Western presence, however, triggered a fierce insurgency and still fiercer
fighting between the Sunni minority that had long ruled Iraq and the Shi'ite
majority that had long suffered under Sunni rule. Washington's protege, Ahmad
Chalabi, had little domestic support and might well have been an Iranian agent.
The plan for a swift transition to democracy went awry.
Nonetheless, as tribal diplomacy prevailed on the Sunnis to cease hostilities
and Iranian pressure affected the same with fellow Shi'ites, representative
government began to form in Baghdad. The results of recent parliamentary
elections are not yet known, but voter turnout was impressive (about 62%) and
Sunni participation was much higher than in the previous election, which they
unwisely boycotted. Representative government might be strengthened after this
round of elections, but there are serious problems yet to be resolved.
Much of the stability has come less from internal consensus than from Iranian
pressure on rival Shi'ite parties and militias, many of which had been groomed
in Iran during the war with Iraq (1980-1988). Iran, through its Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), once used its influence to inflict
casualties on US troops in an effort to force them from its western
borderlands, but fear of retaliatory air strikes led it to help stabilize Iraq.
Political influence replaced militia attacks in getting the US out - a strategy
that yielded the 2008 law mandating a full US exit by the end of next year. The
IRGC helped bring stability and it can undo it.
United States and Saudi tribal diplomacy brought stability to the Sunni Arab
region but at the cost of strengthening dozens of tribal chieftains and local
power holders, largely at the expense of unified political parties. This is
agreeable to the Shi'ites, who seek above all else to prevent a resurgence of
Sunni power. The coalescence of Sunni groups is probable in upcoming years,
which will present problems. The Shi'ites will endeavor to keep the Sunnis a
subordinated if not an intimidated minority.
In recent months, Sunni groups, signaling an unwillingness to go quietly into
the margins of political life, have embarked on a bombing campaign against
Shi'ite targets. At some point, perhaps once US troops have gone in two years,
the Shi'ites will clarify the post-Saddam political realities to the Sunnis,
initially through politics, but then through force if need be.
Democracy in the region
The neo-conservative scenario saw Iraqi democracy spreading, either through
example or further military action, to other Middle Eastern countries and
transforming a stagnant, authoritarian region into a vibrant, democratic one.
Free markets and open elections would replace state controls and repressive
dynasties, making for better opportunities in the region and ensuring greater
security for the US and its allies.
It is difficult to discern significant democratizing processes unfolding in
Saudi Arabia or the other Sunni-Arab states of the Gulf region. Indeed, the
majority of such states have become alarmed by the sudden rise of Shi'ite power
in Iraq. In concert with Iran, it could lead to stirrings, democratic or not,
within their own sizeable Shi'ite populations, which are restive and often
situated in oil-producing areas.
A pro-Western political system might have been forcibly imposed on Iran, or at
least attempted, had the US been able to build a reliable Iraqi army soon after
the invasion of Iraq. After all, following Saddam's ouster, some US media ran
stories of reform-minded students eager to overthrow the mullahs who composed
one partner in the "axis of evil", along with Iraq and North Korea.
Reformist groups in Iran have not drawn from events in Iraq. Iran has a long
history of democratic movements dating to the Constitutional Movement of the
early 20th century; Iran elected the reformist Mohammad Khatami to the
presidency long before the US invaded Iraq; and American policies are not
widely considered benign even a half century after Mohammad Mossadegh's ouster
in an Anglo-American coup.
US and regional security
Wars were once thought of as a means to increase a nation's security, though as
the histories of many countries indicate, in practice they have often done the
opposite. Today, especially in the US, past and present wars are befogged by
partisan politics and national myths. The matter of national security is easily
lost.
The invasion of Iraq rejuvenated Islamist militancy around the world, which had
been in decline. Many Muslims saw the US invasion as the beginning of an effort
to reconquer the region and heap additional humiliation on their people and
faith. Volunteers from the Arab world served in al-Qaeda forces in Iraq to
fight the Americans, just as an earlier generation had joined the Afghan
mujahideen to fight the Russians in the 1980s.
Though largely marginalized in Iraq now, al-Qaeda and like-minded entities have
grown in the Maghreb, Yemen, Somalia and as far east as Indonesia and the
Philippines. Sympathetic groups have arisen among the diasporas in Western
Europe.
Traditional US allies look on the Iraq venture as a serious blunder. Allies
such as France saw the ideas behind the war as flawed and refused to take part.
Others rued their participation and began withdrawals soon after sectarian
violence broke out in 2006. Several North Atlantic Treaty Organization
countries question the wisdom and even the trustworthiness of the great power
that spoke confidently of an almost effortless transition from dictatorship to
democracy. Events in Afghanistan have done nothing to restore trust.
Iran became an inadvertent beneficiary of the Iraq invasion as its chief enemy,
Saddam, was toppled and his army disbanded. Iranian-backed parties and militias
came to power along with the Shi'ite majority. As adverse as this is to US
interests, it is even more so to many Sunni states in the region that fear
rising Shi'ite power - from Iran, across Iraq and into Lebanon.
Iraq is unlikely to become Iran's partner in fomenting Shi'ite unrest in the
Middle East. Calls for uprisings came soon after the shah fell in 1979, but led
nowhere. Saddam's ouster has brought greater instability in the contest between
Saudi Arabia and Iran for mastery of the Gulf region. Saudi diplomacy is
scrambling to contain Iranian influence by supporting Sunni groups in Iraq,
insurgent groups inside Iran, and anyone opposed to an Iranian glacis in
western Afghanistan. Much of the region's diplomatic history over the next
decade or so will concern efforts to play on Iraq's Arab/anti-Persian identity
in countering the boon the US has maladroitly handed Iran.
Geopolitics and oil have gone hand-in-hand since crude was discovered in the
region over a century ago and warships converted from coal to oil. US efforts
to gain access to Iraqi resources - another benefit offered by neo-conservative
thinkers - have been largely unsuccessful. The Iraqi government has awarded
licenses and contracts to non-American entities in a manner that American
enterprises find keenly disappointing. Iraq prefers to deal with less
heavy-handed countries, as do more and more resource-rich countries around the
world.
At the seven-year mark, the US-led invasion of Iraq has failed to bring about
most of the expected results. US allies are questioning Washington as never
before since it deployed over a half million troops to Vietnam. Islamist
militancy and terrorism have increased around the world. Iranian influence in
the Gulf is on the rise - as are Saudi-Iranian tensions. This leaves an area
through which a great deal of the world's oil flows less stable than it was
before coalition forces crossed the Iraqi frontier in 2003. Expectations of
economic advantages for US businesses have become disappointments. The war has
added to the US national debt and pushed the country closer to fiscal crisis.
There are, however, encouraging prospects for democracy in Iraq. This is an
important and portentous achievement, but thus far there has been little
spillover into the region. In a supreme paradox, one that might penetrate the
clouds of partisan politics and national myths that swirl around Washington,
the democratic government of Iraq is favoring US rivals and expelling the
troops that made representative government possible.
Brian M Downing is the author of The Military Revolution and Political
Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the
Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com.
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