01 October 2011: Des Moines Register
President Obama can put Iraq in the win column.
He has done exactly what he said he would do four years ago as a presidential candidate. In December, the U.S. will withdraw most or all of its remaining forces from Iraq. Unlike the economy and the Middle East peace talks, Iraq is on course.
But there will be no electoral bounce for Obama on Iraq. Americans are too preoccupied with the dismal state of the economy to much notice or care.
How times change. Not so long ago Iraq was the issue in U.S. foreign policy. In 2008, Obama made a responsible end to the war in Iraq a pillar of his presidential campaign, in contrast to his opponent, Sen. John McCain, who was a lead sponsor of the congressional resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq.
This time around, Obama will probably not be challenged much, if at all, by his Republican opponent on Iraq. Why and how would a Republican candidate criticize Obama on Iraq anyway? The beginning of the end occurred with the surge of U.S. troops under President Bush, and the agreement to withdraw U.S. forces was negotiated in 2008, also on Bush’s watch.
Iraq came up only once in last week’s Republican debate in Orlando. It was a rare appearance for Iraq in the Republican campaign. The question was posed to former Sen. Rick Santorum, who made a case for keeping troops in the region. It was one of the few answers that generated no applause. There was no follow up on Iraq from the moderator or the other candidates.
Simply put, the constituency for the continued deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq is fading fast. The same is increasingly true for Afghanistan. The House of Representatives would not have authorized the limited use of force in Libya. Americans are tired of inconclusive wars in this region. Obama has already banked the savings from the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in his proposal to reduce the U.S. budget deficit.
The war in Iraq has been costly: 4,477 Americans killed; more than 42,000 wounded; an estimated 100,000 or more Iraqi civilian deaths; and all at a price of $800 billion in direct expenditures. Not quantifiable is the damage to U.S. influence and prestige that resulted from the Iraq war.
The U.S. has no plans to abandon or forget about Iraq, which is an important oil-producing country in a vital and volatile region. Iraq’s politics are fragile, and its security situation precarious. Iran and Syria are Iraq’s neighbors. Terrorists seem to strike and kill at will. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s coalition government has proved more adept at politics rather than governance. Tensions remain between Baghdad and the Kurdistan regional government over energy resources. There has been progress in the training and performance of Iraqi forces, but this progress may be overstated, and the weaknesses will be probed and exposed by Iraq’s enemies after U.S. forces leave.
There are discussions for a residual U.S. force of perhaps 3,000 (the number is still being negotiated) to provide training for Iraqi security forces. Some Iraq watchers, including Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, believe that number is too low.
Maliki is boxed in in asking for more U.S. forces to stay by the anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr, on whom Maliki depends to maintain his ruling coalition. Sadr commands a large constituency among Iraqi Shiites and is backed by Iran. The U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein has been mostly a windfall for Iran, which is now a de facto power broker in Iraq. Iran’s strategic gains are one of the unintended consequences of the war.
The debate over the number and mission of U.S. troops in Iraq is, however, at the margins of U.S. politics. Americans prefer to focus on matters at home. Iraq is likely to be a no-show in Campaign 2012. It is now the domain of military and policy planners and diplomats, not of presidents and political campaigns. President Obama can take credit for that.
