Senior US and Iraq officers say the 15-year fight isn't quite finished and they need to ensure that another ISIS can't rise.
By Hari Prasad, Divergent Options: “Many Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) works have focused on the role of individual and enabling factors in the rise of extremism, yet it is important to not overlook larger structural factors. In particular, authoritarianism in the Arab world has proven to help foment conditions that can help encourage the rise of extremism, or discredit counter extremism efforts..”
Michael Rubin | Washington Examiner
Many pundits and policymakers not only continue to treat Iraq and Iraqis as a partisan football but also perpetuate false myths about the Iraq War's run-up and aftermath. Fifteen years on, Iraq has turned a corner. About 40 percent of Iraqis were born after the war and never knew Saddam Hussein. And, importantly, Iraqis across the ethnic, sectarian, and political spectrum have real say in their governance.
After returning from a recent reporting trip to the Middle East, Defense One's executive editor tweeted: "I was in Baghdad for the 'end' of the Iraq war in 2010. I was there for the 'end' of the Iraq war in 2011. I was there for the 'end' of the Iraq war in 2018. Here's what they told me, this time...'' Read on:
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Fifteen years on, and the war in Iraq still isn’t done. But where are we? What’s left to do? And will anything be different this time around?
“I honestly don’t know,” says Col. James Kaio, the New Zealand Army officer who is in change of the U.S.-led coalitions' efforts to training Iraqi forces to fight ISIS, better known as Operation Inherent Resolve. But he was one of about a dozen senior U.S., Iraq, and coalition commanders here who gave a strong view of Iraq’s immediate security future, if perhaps less so in Iraq’s political future.
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The Cipher Brief asked its experts in intelligence, diplomacy and the military to assess the war’s impact.
- Rob Richer, former chief of CIA’s clandestine operations in the Middle East and South Asia during the Iraq war: “We failed on the strategic aspect of the aftermath of the invasion. We had no substantive plan for the day after Saddam fell. We allowed Iraqi opposition figures with no real linkages to, or support from the Iraqi people, to influence our post-war decisions, with one of the most telling being the dissolution of the Iraqi military, police and security services.”
- Ambassador James Jeffrey, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey: “All was not a failure on Iraq. We succeeded with much help from Iraqis and occasionally some from international community in keeping the country unified, all but ending violence by 2009 (at least until ISIS’s rise), seeing oil production rise to about half of Saudi Arabia’s—number two in OPEC and a major reason for low oil prices since 2014, creating a constitutional democratic system despite flaws that survives, and military forces that – despite their initial failure against ISIS – saved Baghdad.”
- Adm. (ret.) Sandy Winnefeld, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman: “The costs in blood and treasure, and the extended impact on the rest of the Middle East, are now a matter of record. The conflict pushed very hard against the international legal standard that demands an imminent threat when citing self- or collective self-defense. And the nature of the conflict set the U.S. military back years in maintaining its competitiveness in a potential conflict with a more capable adversary.”