Yes, it is true that
there was no al-Qaeda in Iraq when George W. Bush took office. But it is
equally true that there was essentially no al-Qaeda in Iraq remaining when
Barack Obama took office.
Which makes Bush
responsible for the terrible costs incurred to defeat the 2003-09 jihadist war
engendered by his invasion. We can debate forever whether those costs were
worth it, but what is not debatable is Obama’s responsibility for the return of
the Islamist insurgency that had been routed by the time he became president.
By 2009, al-Qaeda in
Iraq had not just been decimated but humiliated by the U.S. surge and the Anbar Awakening. Here were aggrieved Sunnis,
having ferociously fought the Americans who had overthrown 80 years
of Sunni hegemony, now reversing allegiance and joining the infidel invader in
crushing, indeed extirpating from Iraq, their fellow Sunnis of al-Qaeda.
At the same time, Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki turned
the Iraqi army against radical Shiite militias from Basra all the way north to
Baghdad.
US President Barack Obama speaks on the situation in Iraq on June 19, 2014 in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC
The result? “A
sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq.” That’s not Bush congratulating
himself. That’s Obama in December 2011 describing the Iraq we
were leaving behind. He called it “an extraordinary achievement.”
Which Obama proceeded to throw away. David Petraeus had won the war. Obama’s one task was to conclude a status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) to solidify the gains. By Obama’s own admission — in the case he’s now making for a status-of-forces agreement with Afghanistan — such agreements are necessary “because after all the sacrifices we’ve made, we want to preserve the gains” achieved by war.
Which is what made
his failure to do so in Iraq so disastrous. His excuse was his inability to get
immunity for U.S. soldiers. Nonsense. Bush had worked out a compromise in his
2008 SOFA, as we have done with allies everywhere. The real problem was Obama’s
determination to “end the war.” He had three years to negotiate a deal and
didn’t even begin talks until a few months before the deadline period.
He offered to leave
about 3,000 to 5,000 troops, a ridiculous number. U.S. commanders said they
needed nearly 20,000. (We have 28,500 in South Korea and 38,000 in Japan to
this day.) Such a minuscule contingent would spend all its time just protecting
itself. Iraqis know a nonserious offer when they see one. Why bear the domestic
political liability of a continued U.S. presence for a mere token?
Moreover, as historian Max Boot has pointed out, Obama
insisted on parliamentary ratification, which the Iraqis explained was not just
impossible but unnecessary. So Obama ordered a full withdrawal. And with it
disappeared U.S. influence in curbing sectarianism, mediating among factions
and providing both intelligence and tactical advice to Iraqi forces now operating
on their own.
The result was
predictable. And predicted. Overnight, Iran and its promotion of Shiite
supremacy became the dominant influence in Iraq. The day after the U.S.
departure, Maliki ordered the arrest of the Sunni vice president.
He cut off funding for the Sons of Iraq, the Sunnis who had fought with us
against al-Qaeda. And subsequently so persecuted and alienated Sunnis that they
were ready to welcome back al-Qaeda in Iraq — rebranded in its Syrian refuge as
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria — as the lesser of two evils. Hence the
stunningly swift ISIS capture of Mosul, Tikrit and so much of Sunni Iraq.
But the jihadist
revival is the result of a double Obama abdication: creating a vacuum not just
in Iraq but in Syria. Obama dithered and speechified during the early days of
the Syrian revolution, before the jihadists had arrived, when the secular
revolt was systematically advancing on the Damascus regime.
Hezbollah, Iran and
Russia helped the regime survive. Meanwhile, a jihadist enclave (including
remnants of the once-routed al-Qaeda in Iraq) developed in large swaths of northern
and eastern Syria. They thrived on massive outside support while the secular
revolutionaries foundered waiting vainly for U.S. help.
Faced with a de facto
jihadi state spanning both countries, a surprised Obama now has little choice
but to try to re-create overnight, from scratch and in miniature, the kind of
U.S. presence — providing intelligence, tactical advice and perhaps even air
support — he abjured three years ago
His announcement
Thursday that he is sending 300 military advisers is the beginning of
that re-creation — a pale substitute for what we long should have had in place
but the only option Obama has left himself. The leverage and influence he
forfeited with his total withdrawal will be hard to reclaim. But it’s our only
chance to keep Iraq out of the hands of the Sunni jihadists of ISIS and the
Shiite jihadists of Tehran.
