There is a fierce debate under way in Washington and around the world about what America should be doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, the two centerpieces of the West’s War on Terror.  The two sides of the debate are represented by the campaign trail rhetoric of the presidential candidates.  The battle line has been drawn by John McCain and Barack Obama, one of whom will be the new Commander in Chief beginning in January 2009.

Obama, on an overseas jaunt to both war zones, has made clear that he would
give the armed forces a new mission: to withdraw from Iraq within 16 months,
and to add two or three brigades to Afghanistan.  McCain himself has
advocated adding more troops in Afghanistan in response, while holding troop
levels in Iraq steady for the time being, without a specific withdrawal
timetable- essentially Bush’s stance.  One view or the other will soon
come to pass as the the two ideologies come to a head.

In evaluating each candidate’s position in the debate, it is worth exploring
how we arrived where we are today.  I have attempted to frame each war as
briefly as possible.  The narrative of each invasion and subsequent
occupation highlights the stark contrast of the missions.

Afghanistan: We invaded Afghanistan with our NATO allies and toppled the ruling Taliban regime because of overwhelming evidence that they harbored our enemy Al-Qaeda forces, which committed multiple terrorist attacks against us, especially the shocking and well-organized crimes of 9/11/01 on American soil.

Iraq: We invaded Iraq with little assistance from few
allies to topple the ruling Saddam Hussein regime
because he might have had an active weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program,
because of evidence that Iraqi officials may have met with someone from Al-Qaeda
at some point, to liberate the oppressed population, and to spread democracy in
the Middle East.  The administration’s mandate
after 9/11 was extended to taking down another authoritarian regime in the
Persian Gulf, and finishing the job that the president’s
father never completed when he was in power.  Cheney and Company felt they
were being patriotic by securing the oil fields of
Iraq for our future energy needs, because “they hate us for our
freedom,” because Secretary Rumsfeld wanted to test the
effectiveness of a new leaner, meaner military fighting machine, because many
Americans saw it as a Crusade against Islamic terrorism, because U.S.
government officials believed that Iraq could project power beyond its borders
despite the fact that NATO was patrolling two-thirds
of its airspace, and finally, we are now staying there to act as policemen
until Iraq stabilizes itself in terms of security and politics, so we can leave
with a “victory.”

Each narrative is now fact.  They are entirely based on the statements
of the Bush administration which led us to war.  It’s worth analyzing the
reasons we went to war on their merits, with the benefit of hindsight in the
year 2008.

Invading Afghanistan was clearly an act of self-defense, a necessary measure
to protect the American homeland.  Pursuing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, by
killing and capturing their leaders and foot-soldiers, was justifiable to
prevent future attacks and also send a message to the world that America would not accept an act of war against it.  Most of the world agreed with us on
this one.

On the other hand, each of the arguments for invading Iraq has turned out to
be tenuous at best, and they have morphed to adjust to the Bush
administration’s new public relations rollouts.  As a whole, the narrative
is utterly confusing.  Let’s put each individual argument to the test:

- Iraq had a WMD program. We searched far and wide for an
active WMD program in Iraq and came up short.  There were no weapons
stockpiles.  There were no reactors, labs, or personnel that could
conclusively point to the existence of an active WMD program.   U.S.
intelligence agencies concluded that any program that had existed in Iraq had
been dismantled prior to the U.S. invasion.
- Iraqi officials met with Al-Qaeda leaders. The evidence
presented on this front was shaky.  There was discussion of secret
meetings in the Czech Republic or elsewhere between Iraqi military personnel
and Al Qaeda operatives.  Analysts concluded there was no operational
significance to these meetings, if they happened at all.
- An oppressed population required liberation.  There is no doubt
that Saddam was a brutal dictator who oppressed many of his people, largely due to sectarian differences between his Sunni tribe and the Shi’ites and
Kurds.  Peaceful and violent attempts by Iraqis to overthrow Saddam were
fiercely thwarted with grave consequences.  On the other hand, a large
percentage of the population showed its displeasure against the American
presence by taking up arms against the occupier.  This included both
Shi’ites and Sunni insurgents who have caused most of the 4,000+ deaths of
American soldiers well after Saddam was out of power.  The results on this
point are mixed; the lives of some have improved, while many others were caught up in fierce sectarian violence bordering on civil war between the Sunnis and Shi’ites in a power struggle that is not yet over.  An estimated 2 million
Iraqis became refugees in places such as Jordan and Syria and still live in
appalling conditions; perhaps a better fate than the hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis who died in the bloodshed which the U.S. and Iraqi forces were unable to
prevent.  Remember, we lost 3,000 on 9/11 to a foreign menace and that
stung our nation to the core.  Many Iraqis will tell you that liberation has not been worth losing their livelihoods and families.
- Invading Iraq would help spread democracy throughout the region and the
world.  The jury is still out on this one.  Iranian leadership is
feeling empowered and has turned away from democratic trends in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, leaning toward conservative Shi’ite tendencies.
Hamas was elected to power in Palestine, but the group is an incubator of Sunni
terrorists.   Hizballah has weakened the democratic institutions in Lebanon, and wreaked havoc against Israel.  Saudi Arabia and Syria are just as authoritarian as before.  Rising powers such as Russia and China are rolling back democracy despite exploiting capitalist opportunities. Iraq itself has had elections and has made strides toward building a constitution, but large parts of the Sunni faction are left out of representative government and oil wealth.  So the jury is still out even on Iraq’s prospects for democracy.
- 9/11 gave America the mandate to topple other authoritarian regimes
besides the Taliban. We know Bush felt this way because after 9/11,
he told Americans about the “Axis of Evil” consisting of Iraq, Iran,
and North Korea, opening the door for him to attack any or all three of them in
the context of a changed world.  This was dramatically different from his
isolationist rhetoric on the campaign trail in 2000.  The Bush Doctrine
would pit America against all dictators, not just the Taliban.  Never mind
that Saddam was not an Islamist, and had not invaded America or committed a
proven act of terror on American soil.  Most of our closest allies in the
Middle East and Europe who fought side by side with us against Saddam in 1991 disagreed that 9/11 was reason enough to target Iraq.  Even nations such
as Germany, France, and Saudi Arabia, who owe their very existence to Americans saving their hides in recent history, would not support the effort.
In the Saudi case it was even Saddam himself from whom they needed saving
in 1991, and the royals said no dice.
- George W. Bush needed to complete the job his father started.
There are some who will say there is no evidence here.  My response is
this:  only twice in history has America invaded Iraq, and in both cases
the president’s first name was George and last name was Bush.  If you
believe there is no psychological void being addressed between the father and
son working in the exact same office, under very different times and changed
circumstances,  try telling that to Freud.
- Securing the Iraqi oil fields was a patriotic and necessary duty for the
future of America’s security and economy.  This was easily the best
argument to go to war, and there may be a sincere moral intention behind it,
but it is simultaneously the most cynical and reviled view that Americans are
not even allowed to speak of openly.  Securing a largely untapped energy
source  before it got into the hands of China, Russia, or someone else was
deemed critical for America in the long term.  It’s yet to be seen if Iraq
can pump up to capacity and if it will turn out to be a real gift to the people
of America after all.  The security situation would have to be improved
dramatically first.
- They hate us for our freedom.  This is a tough one.  Who are “they?”  What does “freedom” even mean to a foreign people when they feel they are being controlled by a superpower occupier? Most Iraqis, according to polls, preferred an Iraqi dictator lording over them and taking their oil rather than a foreign power.
- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted to test a leaner, meaner
military machine. He wrote this himself in the run-up to Afghanistan
and Iraq.  The result?  A highly successful invasion, and a
frighteningly inadequate and failed occupation afterward, which was
overstretched in its mission to rule Iraq.  Over five years later, America
is still struggling to manage Iraq effectively under its fledgling
government.  The troop levels and resources in both Iraq and Afghanistan
have never been where they needed to be.  It is the reason why we are
still mired in both countries, long after the fired Rumsfeld thought we would
be.  This will be remembered as his legacy to America.
- Some American leaders saw this as a crusade against Islamic terrorism.
Bush and other Republican politicians owed the religious right, big time.
The war was one way to speak to churchgoers.  This turned out to be a
self-fulfilling prophecy.  Saddam’s regime, which was a nasty one, was not
religious.  Al Qaeda wasn’t based there.  After we invaded, the
Islamic radicals came to us.  Many American lives were lost in this
battle.  Although it appears Al Qaeda in Iraq  has been largely
neutralized, the cadres are biding their time.  They are probably
regrouping elsewhere anyway; there are many other safe havens for them, the
main ones being in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they are trying to blend in
with the locals.
- Iraq would have projected power beyond its borders if Saddam wasn’t taken
down. This was a very weak argument.  Since 1991, when the
allied forces led by Bush Sr. castrated the Iraqi regime by destroying most of
its military infrastructure, Saddam was unable to threaten anyone else outside
his borders.  With residual forces in Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
Germany, the Persian Gulf waters, etc. the U.S. and its NATO allies were around
to make sure nothing untoward happened to Iraq’s neighbors.  Iran, Israel,
and other countries armed to the hilt were on alert in case Saddam were to try
anything stupid.  The no-fly zone over Iraqi airspace effectively hemmed
in Iraq’s pathetic air force.  Saddam may have been unpalatable, but he
wasn’t stupid or insane.  We have no evidence that Saddam was a threat to
anybody except his own people.
- We are there to act as policemen while Iraq gets its act together.
This is the latest argument, and the main one given by our government to
describe why we are there today.  In reality, this reason is why we are
stuck.  We created a huge mess, and are obliged to stay until it is
cleaned up.  The alternatives are leaving behind a civil war, a terrorist
breeding ground, and a perception of defeat by the American people and others
around the world.  But it’s a Catch-22; much of the work, we can’t do
ourselves and our presence could make things worse.  We cannot tell a
Middle Eastern country exactly how to run itself for cultural, religious, and
political reasons.  So we are relegated to being the police force until
the country’s own forces are able to stand up on their own, a task that is
years behind schedule.  Depending on how you define the goal of Iraqis
taking care of themselves without our presence, this could take several
decades.  An empowered Iran is nearby meddling in the country’s affairs,
closely linked to powerful Shi’ite figures including Muqtada Al-Sadr, who in
fact lives in Iran.  Al Qaeda is down and not out, and could be lying in
wait and regrouping.  Most Sunnis still feel oppressed as the tables have
been turned on them by the Shi’ites who were marginalized under Saddam; the
thousand-year rivalry between Sunnis and Shi’ites has not magically ended, much
to Bush’s chagrin.  Therein lies the elusiveness of a
“victory.”  I would argue victory, if ever achieved, wasn’t
worth it: wasn’t worth 200,000 Iraqis dead, a $1 trillion+ with a T
price tag, 4,000 American soldiers dead, many thousands more maimed, 2 million refugees, and countless other issues for a strictly optional war with no hint of self-defense, and most importantly, Al Qaeda still alive, it simply was not worth the blood and treasure.

At this point it should be clear that the variety of reasons why we are in
Iraq present a goody bag of a few successes and a large number of
failures.  The narrative itself has had to change constantly, morphing
from one bad reason to stay to another over the course of 5 years.  Iraq
has weakened our military, emboldened our new #1 enemy Iran, and many of the people who we liberated have spurned us by laying down explosive devices
instead of flowers at our feet.  We haven’t reaped the benefits of the
energy potential that exists in Iraq.  Perhaps most damagingly, America’s
perception in the world as the beacon of hope for struggling people everywhere
has been replaced by a sense of a giant wielding power for entirely cynical
reasons.  Our diplomatic corps has been marginalized in favor of hawks driven
by an inflexible ideology.

It will take a new kind of president to restore America’s position in the
world to where it rightfully should be, as the moral authority for the rest of
the world.  Luckily, we will not have to wait long, and he is already
taking the first steps by visiting our war zones to see for himself how we
should proceed.  Godspeed.