Did the U.S. Withdraw from Iraq Too Soon? >
It's Already Too Late in Iraq
The war should never have been launched--so it can't be ended soon enough
January 23, 2012
About Phyllis Bennis:
Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. In 2001 she helped found and remains on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She continues to serve as an adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues.
Far from being "too soon," the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq came more than eight years too late--and still, the war isn't over. This war should never have been launched, so it can't be ended soon enough.
[Why America Is More Violent Than Other Democracies.]
The war was based on lies--remember the "weapons of mass destruction" that weren't there, the "links to 9/11" that never happened, the "mobile weapons laboratories" that didn't exist? Withdrawing troops now, after eight years of occupation, doesn't mean the U.S. achieved victory. It was a defeat for the U.S. and a disaster for the people of Iraq. A terrible dictator (who had been armed, paid, and backed by the U.S., we should not forget) was indeed overthrown. But Iraqis faced years without security, basic services, electricity--let alone democracy, human rights, or independence.
The U.S. war, following more than a decade of devastating U.S.-imposed economic sanctions, ravaged the infrastructure and social fabric of Iraq, leaving behind a broken country ruled by a corrupt sectarian government. For eight years, with up to 182,600 U.S. and allied troops occupying the country at any one time, Iraq was one of the most dangerous countries in the world, and remains so today. That would still be the case if we had pulled out years ago, or if we waited another one, two, or 25 years.
[Iran Threatens U.S., Persian Gulf Cities with Missile Attacks.]
Of course, it's important that U.S. troops and Pentagon-paid contractors have been withdrawn. Indeed it's a huge victory for the U.S. and global anti-war movements who made it imperative for President Obama to enforce the U.S.-Iraq agreement requiring just that. But the U.S. war is not over. U.S. troops have left Iraq, but thousands are streaming into Kuwait and onto Navy ships cruising just "over the horizon." Maybe just a few hundred uniformed U.S. troops will be left in Iraq, but 15,000 or more State Department-paid mercenaries are pouring in, doing the same things--guarding the biggest-in-the-world U.S. embassy, training Iraqis to use the weapons we're still flooding the country with, "special operations"--that continue the instability. The contractors include some of the same armed men whose Pentagon-paid violence led to such outrage in the past. Americans may have forgotten, but Iraqis certainly remember.
It's already too late, but the whole U.S. war in Iraq, not only the presence of uniformed troops, needs to end completely. That includes ending the related wars--in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the drone wars in Yemen and Somalia and beyond, the threatened wars against Iran. Only then can we really claim we've "withdrawn from Iraq."
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- Other Arguments
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#15527
Yes — The U.S. must pressure Iraq to avoid a new sectarian civil war
ROBERT ZARATE, Policy Director of the Foreign Policy Initiative
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#33928
No — The United States should never have invaded in the first place
CHRISTOPHER PREBLE, Vice President for Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute
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#42518
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
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#53934
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
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#63026
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
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#73433
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
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#73231
Yes — The real winner in the Middle East will be Iran
HELLE DALE, Senior Fellow in Public Diplomacy Studies at the Heritage Foundation
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#93031
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
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#103035
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
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#11819
No — Arms sales to Iraq also will provide a continuing source of connectivity
DANIEL GOURÉ, Vice President at the Lexington Institute
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#124153
No — The Iraq War cost the United States 4,421 lives and $806 billion
DENNIS KUCINICH, U.S. Representative, Ohio's 10th District
