May was Iraq's deadliest month in nearly five years, with more than 1,000
dead - both civilians and security personnel -- in a rash of bombings, shootings
and other violence. As we read each day of new horrors in Iraq, it becomes
more obvious that the US invasion delivered none of the promised peace or
stability that proponents of the attack promised.
Millions live in constant fear, refugees do not return home, and the economy
is destroyed. The Christian community, some 1.2 million persons before 2003,
has been nearly wiped off the Iraqi map. Other minorities have likewise disappeared.
Making matters worse, US support for the Syrian rebels next door has drawn
the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government into the spreading regional unrest and breathed
new life into extremist elements.
The invasion of Iraq opened the door to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which did not exist
beforehand, while simultaneously strengthening the hand of Iran in the region.
Were the "experts" who planned for and advocated the US attack really this
incompetent?
Ryan Crocker, who was US Ambassador to Iraq from 2007-2009, still speaks of
the Iraqi "surge" as a great reconciliation between Sunni and Shi'ite in Iraq.
He wrote recently that "[t]hough
the United States has withdrawn its troops from Iraq, it retains significant
leverage there. Iraqi forces were equipped and trained by Americans, and the
country's leaders need and expect our help." He seems alarmingly out of touch
with reality.
It is clear now that the "surge" and the "Iraqi Awakening" were just myths
promoted by those desperate to put a positive spin on the US invasion, which
the late General William Odom once called, "the greatest strategic disaster
in American history." Aircraft were loaded with $100 dollar bills to pay each
side to temporarily stop killing US troops and each other, but the payoff
provided a mere temporary break. Shouldn't the measure of success of a particular
policy be whether it actually produces sustained positive results?
Now we see radical fighters who once shot at US troops in Iraq have spilled
into Syria, where they ironically find their cause supported by the US government!
Some of these fighters are even greeted by visiting US senators.
The US intervention in Iraq has created ever more problems. That is clear.
The foreign policy "experts" who urged the US attack on Iraq now claim that
the disaster they created can only be solved with more interventionism! Imagine
a medical doctor noting that a particular medication is killing his patient,
but to combat the side effect he orders an increase in dosage of the same
medicine. Like this doctor, the US foreign policy establishment is guilty
of malpractice. And, I might add, this is just what the Fed does with monetary
policy.
From Iraq to Libya to Mali to Syria to Afghanistan, US interventions have
an unbroken record of making matters far worse. Yet regardless of the disasters
produced, for the interventionists a more aggressive US foreign policy is
the only policy they offer.
We must learn the appropriate lessons from the disaster of Iraq. We cannot
continue to invade countries, install puppet governments, build new nations,
create centrally-planned economies, engage in social engineering, and force
democracy at the barrel of a gun. The rest of the world is tired of US interventionism
and the US taxpayer is tired of footing the bill for US interventionism. It
is up to all of us to make it very clear to the foreign policy establishment
and the powers that be that we have had enough and will no longer tolerate
empire-building. We should be more confident in ourselves and stop acting
like an insecure bully.
