What We Left Behind in Iraq
What We Left Behind in Iraq by Dexter Filkens, The New Yorker
… Crocker saw in Iraq one final unintended consequence of America’s long war: the state that we created doesn’t work without us. The Americans bequeathed the Iraqis a constitution, regular elections, and a two-hundred-and-seventy-five-member parliament, with a quarter of the seats occupied by women. Jeffrey, the former Ambassador, told me optimistically, “Maliki is worried about his reelection. How many countries in the Arab world can you say that about?” And yet, in an accurate reflection of the country itself, the parliament is locked in a seemingly permanent stalemate.
After nine years of brokering agreements, the Americans had made themselves indispensable. “We were hardwired into the Iraqi political system,” Crocker told me. “From the very first days, they were all deeply suspicious of each other. Concession and compromise meant betrayal and death. What we could do is make them listen to us. It required constant engagement: we’d go to Maliki and explain our views, and ask him if he’d consider something. Maybe we would finally get him to say that he would, provided the Sunni leadership would do a series of things first. So we’d go back to the Sunnis. That’s the way it had to work…
Once upon a time, Rome would need to bring a client regent such as Mithradates or Herod back into line.
In my view it was much the same pre-2001 with Saddam Hussein, who by-in-large served U.S. interests as a defacto client regent in keeping Iran’s regional ambitions in check. And so it was in 1991 after Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, realpolitick demanded he be punished but left in power.
Obviously the foregoing is a bit too simplistic, but there were reasons for not going onto Baghdad in 1991, that then SecDef Cheney outlined.
Many of those reasons that have now come full circle and one might wonder why we ever thought any endeavor in democratizing Iraq would work?
What Hubris!
“After nine years of brokering agreements, the Americans had made themselves indispensable. “We were hardwired into the Iraqi political system,” Crocker told me. “From the very first days, they were all deeply suspicious of each other. Concession and compromise meant betrayal and death. What we could do is make them listen to us. It required constant engagement: we’d go to Maliki and explain our views, and ask him if he’d consider something. Maybe we would finally get him to say that he would, provided the Sunni leadership would do a series of things first. So we’d go back to the Sunnis. That’s the way it had to work.”
So the Iraqis can’t get along without us! They are mere squabbling children and we are the benevolent elders who keep the peace. Unbelievable!
I learned a lot from this article about Maliki and the whole process of him coming to power. If you read the full, long article you saw them mention that when the choice came down to an incompetent and an Iranian, a CIA agent mentioned Maliki’s name as a third choice. That’s how it started. When you see the difficulties in finding effective talent, it cast light on the notion that when we drone strike al Qaeda leaders, that similarly good ones will replace them. Finding good leaders is tough. Finding leaders who can be effective without communicating or moving around is that much more difficult.
Maliki’s story is one of survival and manipulation, changing his responses dependent on the situation and personality with whom he was dealing. Karzai appears to be nearly the same way. Opportunists all. Politicians all; they will lie to your face for a temporary advantage and to get you off their back. Do we see something similar after the Geneva meeting where supposedly all parties would back off in Ukraine, yet Putin’s masked guys did not leave their buildings…just as Putin had planned. He bought time. Assad similarly delayed adverse action by agreeing to give up part of his WMD chemical weapons. Kerry thought he could change the Palestinian situation where decades of attempts had failed. See the trend? U.S. diplomacy is a far larger failure than our military actions.
Diplomats believe in words and sanctions. But words delivered without effective sanctions, deterring forces, or decisive action to back it up are nearly meaningless. Despots, politicians, and manipulating opportunists will listen to your words, promise the world, but will not act unless we act. At the end we read that the Kurds may secede if they ever can generate sufficient fuel revenues without the percentage currently gained from southern Iraq. What will Maliki do then?
What would have happened if we had split the three factions when our military had total control? We could have enforced fuel splitting and divided security forces and cities ala Berlin as required to keep the peace. We truly were trying to do the right thing by all parties but we mistakenly thought diplomacy alone could fix Iraq. Democratically elected leaders only will represent their own voters…as we unfortunately see in the U.S. as well. Why do we think democracy abroad without redrawn borders will work? Why do we let our troops get blown up by IEDs trying to maintain a status quo failed nation-state that cannot function with so much ethnic and religious divisiveness?