Did the U.S. Withdraw from Iraq Too Soon?
On the quiet Sunday morning of Dec. 18, 2011, the last U.S. forces left Iraq, effectively ending an almost nine-year war in the country.
“As a candidate for president, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end,” President Obama said two months earlier. “As promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.”
One of the major criticisms of the Iraq War was that no exit strategy was in place before the initial invasion in 2003. Obama had indeed promised to bring all of the troops home if he was elected, but that task proved to be a difficult one after he became president. Congress had tried and failed to pass resolutions to set up withdrawal timetables since 2005, and partial withdrawals in the period since saw “transitional forces” left behind to police a country being ripped apart by sectarian violence.
Discussions about extending the stay of U.S. troops in Iraq ended in October, as the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement was set to expire on Dec. 31, 2011. The Obama administration decided to remove all American forces from the country in part because members of the U.S. military would no longer enjoy immunity in Iraqi courts after the agreement expired.
Proponents of the withdrawal from Iraq see the removal of U.S. troops as a long-needed end to a bloody and painful conflict that probably didn’t need to be fought in the first place. Opponents of the withdrawal argue that Iraq will become a haven for terrorists after the U.S. occupation, and they also worry about Iran’s influence in the newly sovereign but bitterly divided country.
Did the U.S. withdraw from Iraq too soon? Here’s the Debate Club’s take:
The Arguments
Yes — The U.S. must pressure Iraq to avoid a new sectarian civil war
ROBERT ZARATE, Policy Director of the Foreign Policy Initiative Comment (2)
No — The war should never have been launched--so it can't be ended soon enough
PHYLLIS BENNIS, Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies Comment (9)
No — The United States should never have invaded in the first place
CHRISTOPHER PREBLE, Vice President for Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute Comment
No — Mission to promote "democracy" in Iraq was an unobtainable objective
DANIEL J. GALLINGTON, Senior Policy and Program Adviser at the George C. Marshall Institute Comment
No — The withdrawal demonstrated to the people of Iraq and their neighbors that democracy works
LAWRENCE J. KORB, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Comment (1)
Yes — Iraq's fragile coalition government has begun to come apart at the ethnic and sectarian seams
ILAN BERMAN, Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council Comment
Yes — Iraq might take 15 or 20 years to become a functioning democracy
MICHELE DUNNE, Director of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East Comment
Yes — The real winner in the Middle East will be Iran
HELLE DALE, Senior Fellow in Public Diplomacy Studies at the Heritage Foundation Comment (1)
Yes — Pulling the covers over our eyes and leaving the region is not a thought-through strategy
THOMAS HENRIKSEN, Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University Comment (4)
Yes — The president, in his own words, wanted to fulfill a campaign promise
DANIELLE PLETKA, Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute Comment
No — Arms sales to Iraq also will provide a continuing source of connectivity
DANIEL GOURÉ, Vice President at the Lexington Institute Comment
No — The Iraq War cost the United States 4,421 lives and $806 billion
DENNIS KUCINICH, U.S. Representative, Ohio's 10th District Comment (1)
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