Remembering Iraq, eight Years On
By Jeff Hackman March 12, 2011
Remember Iraq? That ancient land—once in the headlines every day—is once again forgotten and neglected by the American people.
It was eight years ago this month that the US invasion began. Today, the US is preparing to, supposedly, bring the last troops home by the end of 2011. There are increasing signs that some, if not all, of the 50,000 US soldiers in Iraq will remain after December 2011. Also, base construction goes on. The Green Zone is certainly not being dismantled; indeed it still gets shelled occasionally!
But more importantly, the breezes of Arab aspirations for a life better than one dominated by strongmen and inadequate public services and pathetic job creation are now being felt throughout Iraq like sandstorms that ignore national boundaries. Iraq is awakening, and she is in a bad mood.
While most Iraqis are genuinely glad that Saddam is gone, they also expected the US to actually live up to its promises of political pluralism and well-funded reconstruction. Those expectations have been cruelly dashed.
Many of the demonstrators shouting in Iraq’s streets today are fed up with the lack of electricity, the inadequate health and educational infrastructure that the US and the Maliki administration kept assuring them was about to come online.
As to the so-called democracy the US established, minus adequate security, it has been found wanting due to extreme corruption and petty infighting. Remember last year’s parliamentary elections? It took the political parties eight months to form a government, while public facilities continued to languish.
As to human rights, the refusal on the part of the US to commit sufficient forces to truly establish security has fostered a culture of fear, sectarianism and vigilantism. The result has been a massive humanitarian crisis the likes of which the Middle East hasn’t seen since 1948. Many refugees refuse to come home; others who have come home have left a second time. We dare not forget the civil war and instability the US unleashed (some think deliberately) on Iraq took hundreds of thousands of lives. Some claim the total is well over one million. Political violence, although reduced from the horrific rates of 2006-7, continues.
The Maliki regime is increasingly looking like a mini-Mubarak, headed toward full fledged authoritarianism. Journalists trying to cover protests are attacked by police. According to a recent report from Human Rights Watch, “the rights of Iraq’s most vulnerable citizens, especially women and detainees, are violated with impunity, and those who would expose official malfeasance or abuses by armed groups do so at enormous risk.” The rights of women are now less secure than any time in the past 30 years. Torture continues in Iraqi prisons and Maliki deliberately looks the other way. Iraqi Christians are persecuted with impunity. Recent protests were put down with live ammunition, killing about 30 people across the country. These protesters weren’t even demanding regime change—they wanted electricity, jobs and an end to official corruption.
The US has spent over $775 billion on Iraq over the past eight years, about another $50 billion this year. Despite this mammoth investment, probably surpassing even the Marshall Plan, today Iraq is nearly a failed state. An incredible amount of money has been wasted—given away to contractors who took the money and ran. Reconstruction aid is only right—since the US broke the country. However, oversight must be stepped up!
The last eight years have been a shattering disaster for Iraq, unleashing an era even more tragic than the despotic reign of Saddam. While it is different from Saddam, it is also clearly worse for the vast majority of Iraqis. The US can not claim victory for democracy, nor for the human rights of Iraqis. About the only upside of the fiasco is the US now has bases on the territory of the second largest oil reserves in the world–which is what some of us identified as the true goal of the invasion from day one.
So, what’s a peacemaker’s advice regarding Iraq in 2011? Just walk away? Leave them to the chaos we’ve unleashed? Stage of coup—get rid of Maliki and start all over? Perhaps send in more troops to create true security? That would be impractical and politically untenable. To be honest, I don’t have any hints of a solution.
We shouldn’t forget about Iraq, and we dare not walk away. The US bears an enormous responsibility for healing that wondrous land. But it won’t come by propping up a new despot or enabling an incompetent bureaucracy. American leaders and the American people need to pray for wisdom as I’m sure the longsuffering people of Iraq do. Eight years on, Iraqis deserve better; and should expect better from America.
