Fatal Attraction

With his statements yesterday, Obama unmasked Maliki and elegantly stated that if the Iraqis cannot or will not keep their country unified, the U.S. is not going to do it for them. So, it seems the “fatal attraction” between Washington and Baghdad, which lasted for 35 years, has come to an end.

With the Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979, the U.S. pushed Saddam to a savage eight-year war (1980-88) with Iran. It would have ended with Tehran’s victory, if Washington had not intervened. Two years later, in the summer of 1990, when Saddam was trying to avoid his devastated country’s financial crisis by grabbing Kuwait, the U.S. misled him by sending a message that could have been interpreted indirectly giving the green light.

Then, after “Desert Storm,” in the spring of 1991, it created a de facto independent Kurdish state in the north, whereas by completely occupying the country in 2003, it initiated the division of the country into three parts. From the U.S. perspective, the issue has been dealt with, with admirable coolness, as if it were something natural.

What the U.S. did not realize in Baghdad is that Iraq’s usefulness was over: First of all, when it failed to topple the Khomeini regime after Iran’s military defeat, and second, when it was revealed that the Saddam regime had failed to sustain a prolonged war of attrition against Tehran.

At around that time, another country — Yugoslavia, after the end of the Cold War between East and West — was losing its strategic utility as an intermediate zone between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. During the crucial 1990-1991 period, the U.S. decided to let developments take their course, confining itself to brief, corrective military interventions.

These days, however, Iraq apparently is not worth the bones of a U.S. Marine, to paraphrase what Bismarck said: “The Balkans are not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.”

Saddam did not realize in 1990 that his usefulness to the U.S. was over. History is repeating itself with Maliki, who for the White House is a thing of the past.