Iraq and Washington’s Failure

Faced with the insurrection and advance of fundamentalist groups in Iraq, U.S. President Barack Obama said yesterday that he “[does] not rule anything out” to support the country’s government. Among the options mentioned by the president, the deployment of warplanes — manned and unmanned — to Iraqi territory stands out.

The recent victories achieved by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria — an organization that seeks to impose Islamic law in all the territory and which controls a large part of the country — have been interpreted by international analysts and critics of the White House as evidence that the United States withdrew from Iraq too early. However, the reality is that, more than exposing flaws in Obama’s military strategy, the circumstances described demonstrate the failure of the foreign policy Washington adopted more than 13 years ago under the presidency of George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that ended up involving the United States and its allies in a worldwide “anti-terrorist” crusade, including the invasion and destruction of two countries, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, the undermining of individual rights and liberties around the world, the perpetration by the superpower of crimes against humanity, and the development of corporate corruption that earned huge dividends from both tragedies.

The results of that policy are evident: Not only has the “war on terror” not made the United States a more secure country or built a more stable world, but it has multiplied the motives for anti-American sentiment and, in the case of Iraq, has resulted in a loss of territorial control by the regime in Baghdad and the advance and growth of fundamentalist groups that, unlike the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein, do present a security threat to the United States.

Although Bush’s successor in the White House put an end to the military intervention in Iraq, in general terms he has also maintained an “anti-terrorist” and belligerent emphasis in his speech — as yesterday’s statement showed — and with it he caused the image and credibility of an administration already weakened politically, militarily and economically to deteriorate. From that standpoint, it seems unlikely that the American president could muster the legislative and international support necessary to launch military actions such as those he hinted at in the aforementioned statement, which would leave his words in the realm of false bluster, something unbecoming to him.

On the other hand, if Obama sent troops to Iraq he would put his country and his government in the depths of moral decay, undermine his own political credibility even more and end up reaffirming his predecessor’s disastrous strategy in that Arab country.

Far from repeating the errors and horrors of the Bush administration and promoting an even greater bloodbath in Iraq, it is appropriate and necessary for the government in Washington to end the interventionist and belligerent policy that has characterized it and acknowledge the situation in Iraq for what it is: monumental evidence of its ineptitude as an imperial power that inhibits its self-proclaimed role as the world’s police.