The important thing is that US President Barack Obama read the ground signals well and stuck to his resolve — and timetable — to announce Tuesday night the end of America’s combat mission in Iraq. This was the sensible course, one that did not brook delay if a serious effort had to be made to salvage the home front. Americans had been led into this pointless war on a false premise by Mr Obama’s predecessor. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. And yet about 150,000 US troops found themselves caught in a bloody fight even as America was being sucked into the vortex of an economic recession. As Mr Obama announced from the Oval Office the end of “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, and his keenness to “turn the page”, he would have been aware that for Iraq’s people the seven years of war the Americans fought was against an enemy they had created. There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before the US military intervention, when Hussein reigned as a despot. This is a sobering thought Americans should not lose sight of as they seek to work on Mr Obama’s “intention to strengthen and sustain our leadership in this young century”. The remaining 49,000 US troops will leave Iraq by the end of 2011, but not Al Qaeda. Does this leave the United States and its allies in the region more secure than before, or less?
Under the US Army’s watch the Iraqi state vanished, and only now is a haphazard effort being made to refabricate it. It was Iraqi society that was disrupted and dismantled, to pick a phrase the eloquent Mr Obama likes to deploy, not Al Qaeda. Rebuilding on a political tectonic plate that is so brittle is not going to be easy in an already-volatile West Asia. Supervised by the Americans, Iraq had its so-called democratic election six months ago, and there is still only a caretaker government. And lest anyone forget, 100,000 Iraqis were killed in these seven years, in contrast to 4,400 Americans.
It is well known that Mr Obama was not in favour of intervention in Iraq. This should stand him in good stead. The US President is also in the process of trying, after a decade-long hiatus, to steady the skidding West Asia peace process, although getting the Israelis and the Palestinians to hammer down a worthwhile agreement has its pitfalls. But it is worth the try. He might find, however, that there are invisible links between this peace process and the process of stabilising the new Iraq. American forces are not leaving Iraq with the announcement of the end of combat operations. They will remain for another 18 months to help Iraqi forces with “counterinsurgency missions” and provide cover to US civilians and contractors working in the country. Time is clearly of the essence. Getting the political jigsaw right in Iraq might go some way in coming out with some credibility intact.
The unwarranted Iraq war derailed the US effort in Afghanistan as men and materials were diverted away from the key fight against Al Qaeda and their local cohorts in the badlands of Pakistan and contiguous areas in southern and eastern Afghanistan where US soldiers find themselves stretched to the limit. The scaling down of US troops in Iraq has freed up fighting forces for Afghanistan. Calling an end to US combat operations in Iraq will bolster this process. Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We can only hope the situation in Iraq will actually improve and will not require the return of US troops. If that were to happen, international jihadists will move up in the power balance in West Asia, and that could impact Afghanistan as well.