Iraq, a Hard Place

Back in 1990, when President George H.W. Bush authorized Operation Desert Storm against a greedy Iraq that had just invaded its oil-rich neighbor, American ally Kuwait, he understood the political dimensions in the region. He knew that a persecuted Muslim minority, Shiites, numbering less than 15% of the Islamic world had their largest concentration of adherents in the Iran (which is well over 90% Shiite and is home to about a third of all Shia faithful) and Iraq (which is 60% Shiite). Iran had fiercely opposed the United States and its polices since the inception of the Islamic Republic in 1979, when they invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 66 hostages (holding 52 of them for over a year). Anything that benefited Iran was deemed to be bad for the United States, which was hell-bent on isolating that rogue Shiite nation. The containment of Iran remains a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy up to the present day.

With Iraq under the boot of a Sunni (85% of all Islam) dictator, Saddam Hussein, President H.W. Bush knew that Iraq was not going to slide into the Iranian camp any time soon. He had the option at the end of the first Gulf War of ousting Hussein, but stopped short. He knew that if the 20% Sunnis minority (represented by the Hussein government) lost control of Iraq, the 60% Shiite majority would take over and, despite an earlier ten-year war between Iran and Iraq fomented by Hussein, would instantly affiliate with their Shiite brethren in Iran. Many wondered why H.W. didn’t “finish the job,” but those familiar with regional politics never asked that question. The answer was just too obvious.

When H.W.’s son, George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 and “finished the job” of ousting Saddam Hussein (and hence the minority Sunnis government), it became a virtual certainty that Iraq would, as soon as the U.S. and its allies left the theater, move to connect with its natural support system in Iran. The democratic government we installed in Iraq naturally and immediately elected a parliament and top leadership that mirrored the Shiite majority. Northern Kurds and Sunnis in Baghdad and the southwestern part of Iraq began to recognize that their roles in the newly configured Iraq would be marginalized, a fact that they knew would get a whole lot worse when the U.S. withdrew its forces.

Indeed, within days of the departure of the last American combat troops, the Iraqi government invited Moktada al-Sadr and his ultra-fundamentalist militia, the Mahdi Army, from their sanctuary in Iran to return to Iraq and join the local military. The highest ranking Sunni, a vice president, was then accused of terrorism and an arrest warrant was issued against him. Frustrated at their increasing political isolation, some Sunnis began detonating explosives in public places, often against Shiite targets, particularly in Baghdad. All of our attempts to create a more neutral Iraq, one that allowed Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites to live in protected harmony, seemed to vaporize as Iraqi policy-makers moved increasingly into the pro-Iranian camp. The Kurds had smartly set up their own semi-autonomous state in the north and were successfully able to resist Shiite control; the Sunnis weren’t so organized or so lucky.

Not only did our military efforts directly benefit Iran by significantly growing their sphere of influence, but we wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on programs intended to make the Iraqi police force a strong body of professional and unbiased enforcement officers. “U.S. auditors have concluded that more than $200 million was wasted on a program to train Iraqi police that Baghdad says is neither needed nor wanted… The Police Development Program – which was drawn up to be the single largest State Department program in the world – was envisioned as a five-year, multibillion-dollar push to train security forces after the U.S. military left last December. But Iraqi political leaders, anxious to keep their distance from the Americans, were unenthusiastic.

“A report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, released [on July 30^th], found that the American Embassy in Baghdad never got a written commitment from Iraq to participate. Now, facing what the report called Baghdad's ‘disinterest’ in the project, the embassy is gutting what was supposed to be the centerpiece of ongoing U.S. training efforts in Iraq… According to the report, the embassy plans to turn over the $108 million Baghdad Police College Annex to Iraqis by the end of the year and will stop training at a $98 million site at the U.S. consulate in the southern city of Basra. Additionally, the number of advisers has been cut by nearly 90 percent – from 350 to 36.” Huffington Post, July 30^th. Iraq’s leadership didn’t want a neutral and professional police force, just one that would fulfill the mandate of the new Shiite majority even if it meant knocking a few Sunni heads along the way.

I’m Peter Dekom, and for all the obvious reasons, I seriously doubt if the United States has really learned the lesson of “obvious but unintended consequences” in the pursuit of a militarily-driven but disastrous foreign policy, particularly in the Islamic world.