Unfounded Opinion: Winning Iraq in Iran

Around the water coolers of the intelligence community, whether in Iraq or at the DIA, we, the people with access to all the classified goodness of the world, would wonder what the fuck we were doing in Iraq. None of us particularly bought the WMD notion--though it was a pretty good sell on the classified side; and none of us ever considered that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 or al Qaeda because al Qaeda is Sunni, Hussein was Shiite--not to mention the most secular leader in all of the Middle East-- making jihad an unlikely hobby. Plus, after those few decades of UN sanctions and the decimation of his oh-so powerful Republican Guard in the first Iraq War, the notion that Saddam wanted a second go failed the logic test.

"So," we asked, dusting off our cool spy sunglasses and reading our Top Secret newspapers, "what the fuck are we doing in Iraq?"

One of the notions that held the most water was the neo-conservative democratic domino effect. Do to the Middle East with Democracy, what the Soviets did to Vietnam with Socialism in the 60s and 70s.

On paper this was a great strategy. We'd fought Iraq before and we knew we could win. Unlike Afghanistan, an infrastructure existed in Iraq and so did a source of revenue (opium excepted) meaning a viable democracy was plausible (see Berhtold Brecht's "Food first then morals" argument if you think democracy can exist without resources). More so, Iraqis were educated, relatively secular, and had a somewhat functioning middle class.

Geographically, there wasn't a better place to implant a democracy. The tempestuous, terror savvy anti-West Iranians to the east; the less stalwart but equally anti-west Syrians to the West; a democratic Muslim ally to the north, and a not-so democratic Muslim ally to the south.

So, we went in and the familiar story of this decade played out: Shock and Awe devolved into Whack-a-Mole devolved into Quagmire resolved with a Surge. Seven years later (almost) we're down to a handful of attacks each day--not great but far fewer than the 1100 or so that occurred each day during the Surge. Plus we have a functioning democracy. It's struggling. It has its shortfalls and is working to earn the trust of its people just like ours had to, but as democracies go, it's doing alright for itself, especially considering it was on the brink of civil war just two years ago.

What isn't given much recognition are the extra-regional effects of the conflict. Speculation is half the argument, but it is difficult to argue coincidence given the chronology of events throughout the Middle East.

• March 2003: We invade Iraq.
  
• April 2005: the once chemical-weapon pursuing, terrorist-harboring, Lebanon-occupying, Iranian-proxied Syria pulls out of Lebanon ending 29 years of occupation.
• 2007: Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah, after a failed, large-scale missile strike on Israel, takes to the streets to unseat the democratic government of Beirut with peaceful protests. The government remains in power, and the democratic process is carried out with relatively little violence.
  
• 2006-2007: The powers that be in Palestine stop fighting Israel and start fighting themselves after holding democratic elections that thrust terrorist-group Hamas into power. While not the ideal result of a democracy, the vote turned the Palestinian conflict inward, resulting in less blame-gaming and forcing Palestinians to re-evaluate its priorities. Unfortunately, the US and Israel continue fucking this one up, especially in 2008 and through to today. Punishment of the whole for the acts of the few is not an effective counterinsurgency technique.
  
• June 2009: Iranian elections largely held to be corrupt send tens of thousands of Iranians into the streets shouting "death to the dictator." Protests, deaths and clashes continue through today as this young movement gains momentum. Increased UN sanctions, lower oil prices, and nuclear debates have put the squeeze on the Iranian government from the international stage.
  

Would all of this happened without 100,000 US troops sitting in the middle of it all? Did the Lebanese feel at least partially emboldened by the US troop presence in Iraq to demand the departure of the Syrian government? Do Iranians feel their voice is less likely to be violently quashed with 100,000 troops and media outlets in their neighbor to the west?

Maybe the argument is better crafted that the Iraq war was meant to force the hand of the entire Middle East. In the land that invented the Bazaar, Arabs and Persians know how to wordsmith and glad hand. Forcing sides in such a place is perhaps a gloomy but necessary step, whether termed the Axis of Evil or Coalition of the Willing.

At the end of the day, and the end of this blog post, I remain skeptical, but can think of no other reason why the fuck we are there. It seems that more political tectonic shifting has occurred in the seven years we've been there than at any other time in the past two decades, and if forcing the conflict into the open and out of terrorist proxy networks and proxy governments is a necessary step to peace, then maybe (maybe), we're eking out of this thing better than we started.