Iraq War Pangs Yet Linger for the US

Just what has the Iraq War of over a decade meant for the United States?

For the various candidates participating in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, their stance on the war has become the unavoidable question nipping at their heels. Jeb Bush, one of the most popular Republican candidates, as well as the son of George Bush Sr. and younger brother of George W. Bush, recently found himself cornered about the topic. The question posed to him was: Knowing what we know now, would he have emulated the choices of his older brother? In the end, he was pressed four times before admitting what everybody knew to be the correct answer: “No.”

The change in posture from his past position of support to one of opposition today is an awkward one to admit for the former governor of Florida. What’s more, the cross collectively borne by the Bush clan on the subject will make Jeb feel the burden that much more acutely.

However, Democratic favorite Hillary Clinton has had her own unpleasant experiences with the subject. Some analysts believe that in her 2008 loss to black horse candidate Barack Obama, a significant contributing factor was that she had once voted in favor of launching the Iraq campaign.

More than a decade later, the wounds inflicted upon the United States by the Iraq War still sting just as keenly, so much so that even an event like the presidential election must dance to its strings. One can be certain that the specter of the war will continue to loom large over the nation for some time to come.

Today, the Iraq War is recognized as one of the biggest military blunders in U.S. history, and by some, even a humiliation. In a highly cost-ineffective campaign, the United States paid a heavy price and yet was unable to accomplish the strategic goals it had set for itself. Just as with the morass of the Vietnam War, the Iraq War has become a nightmare for the United States, exposing the fragility inherent within the world’s only remaining superpower.

The Iraq War also dealt a heavy blow to the reputation of the United States. It did so not only because even the most skilled pundits have a hard time spinning it into a victory, but also because it gave the entire world a glimpse behind the facade of U.S. dominance. Prior to the start of the war, the George W. Bush administration vowed that it held solid evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to al-Qaida, and without first obtaining the sanction of the United Nations, the United States committed itself to the conflict. The result, of course, was that the accusations were proven to be entirely groundless. Meanwhile, over the course of the war, news frequently surfaced of the abuse of prisoners and slaughter of innocents by the U.S. military, further tarnishing the United States’ image.

So with the lives of thousands of U.S. servicemen and women lost and a fantastic amount of capital sunk, the United States, its nose bloodied, slunk off silently into the night. It has been a bitter pill to swallow. The war shattered the region’s strategic equilibrium; anti-U.S. sentiment is on the rise throughout the Arab world, Iran’s influence is expanding throughout the Middle East, the United States’ ability to arbitrate between Israel and Palestine has been markedly weakened, and there has been a steady uptick in the number of terrorist incidents all over the globe.

All of this is salt in the wound for a United States that has promised to “lead” the world for another century.

Some say that just like the Vietnam War, the great misstep of the Iraq War will see its effects ripple across American politics for a generation. The Vietnam War turned a Democratic Party that once believed in Truman’s muscle-flexing internationalism into a bastion for doves. Now, the Iraq War weighs heavy as an albatross around the elephant’s neck, and there is not a Republican who dares lightly suggest deploying U.S. troops to other parts of the world.

Perhaps such pains will turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the United States. It will be a constant reminder for “Uncle Sam” not to repeat the mistakes of the past. In particular, when certain U.S. leaders speak of grandiose aspirations to “lead” the globe for another hundred years, the specter of the Iraq War should swiftly return to remind the United States that the world can no longer be molded by the will of any single nation, and that a break from ruling from the heights of Olympus might actually do it some good.