Obama’s Hesitation Over Iraq

War rages in Iraq, which could transform this country in coming years into a hinterland of terrorists. The dark nightmare of the U.S.A. would return. Yet President Obama not only categorically rejects an American intervention on the ground, but is also very cautious about the possibility of air strikes.

The United States lost more than 4,000 soldiers in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, in spite of the fact that it cost them at least a billion dollars with uncertain results. It is no wonder that they now consider whether to return carefully. The question resounds: Is the present situation, when the very existence of the unified Iraqi state is at stake and its partial occupation by brutal fanatics is imminent, sufficient grounds for going into Mesopotamia again?

Over the last few years the White House has hesitated over the extent to which they will support the Syrian opposition for so long that the Syrian regime has drowned part of the opposition in blood. At the same time, the remainder has been so radicalized in their ruthless Islamic campaign, where there is no shortage either of beheading or crucifixion of opponents, that the armed forces of the unified Iraq are at present unable to stop them. All the same, the present crisis didn’t just fall from the sky.

As early as the very beginning of 2014, in fact, the Iraqi city of Fallujah fell into the hands of fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, who took advantage of local Sunni group support for central government. Since then, however, the U.S.A. has never offered support for its recapture. The subsequent fall of the 2 million-strong northern Iraqi city of Mosul became a question of time. The White House lets itself believe that this case is not a military threat. At a time when heavy fighting takes place north and west of the capital and government forces hold some positions at best, while they desert or chaotically retreat from others, it sounds like the description of a parallel reality. Washington’s efforts at championing the formation of a new, inclusive Iraqi government and the replacement of the incompetent and autocratic Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are commendable. First, however, it is necessary to halt the enemy’s progress. At this stage, the emphasis on a nonmilitary solution to the current war and the exaggerated emphasis on its civilian dimension are buck-passing and an abrogation of the U.S.A.’s powerful role in the Middle East.

At present, Sunni extremists are slowly fighting their way toward Baghdad from the north as well as trying to establish a bridgehead for the attack from the west. It would therefore be sensible to support collaboration with the Iraqi armed forces by air. This method at least slows down the enemy. To stop them, however, the U.S.A. must at least quietly tolerate Iranian or Iranian-backed forces on the battlefield. Paradoxically Iran is the only foreign country determined to defend the Iraqi capital even at the cost of shedding its own blood.

Rather than focusing on a change of government, perhaps President Obama should entertain the possibility that soon there will not be one Iraq, but three: Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite. He should also weigh up his priorities. Will he continue to support the Syrian opposition, whose arms are also used in Iraq by ISIL extremists? Will he continue to aim for a unified Iraq? Will he prioritize cooperation with Iran in the battle against Sunni extremism, or continue to focus on confronting the great Shiite power in the Persian gulf? It is impossible to achieve everything at once and sometimes, it is clear, America must give up on something.

In each case the price for the U.S.A. will be high. If it continues to hesitate and confine itself to cosmetic measures such as sending 300 military advisers to a country whose armed forces were formerly unable to train even 1000 of them, then the U.S.A. could lose its remaining influence in Iraq at the expense of Iran. There is a danger that Iraq will disintegrate and could follow Syria as the scene of the next Middle Eastern civil war. Has the White House forgotten that the U.S.A. went into Iraq in 2003 or that Saddam Hussein’s regime collaborated with al-Qaida? Now it is possible that a terrorist state par excellence will develop in the Middle East. Israel will be anxious, Jordan frightened, the EU endangered. Quite a few ISIL fighters actually have European passports. Will the U.S.A. let it be so?

Iraq is fighting for survival and the American president, together with the international community above him, is washing his hands of it. The Iraqi ruling elite feels isolated and this is dangerous. As with the Syrian opposition, this may lead to the acceptance of aid from anyone who offers it. In Syria it was brutal jihadi fighters, in Iraq it is the Iranian regime. Will the fate of South Vietnam befall Iraq? Will America leave it in the lurch at the eleventh hour? If only because of the kind of results it could have for the U.S.A., President Obama should re-evaluate his cautious attitude.