COMMENTARY | President Obama marked the end of the war in Iraq on Wednesday, December 14, but his salute of returning troops was no declaration of victory. Obama’s low-key wrap-up of the war contrasts starkly with President George W. Bush’s infamous “mission accomplished” celebration. That celebration, which marked the end of major combat operations, was full of the self-assured bravado that led us into the Iraq War.
Where is that bravado now?
Now, a decade past the “shock and awe” bombardment meant to lead to the Iraqi forces’ quick collapse, it’s fair to ask whether America’s achievements were worth their steep cost.
The Iraq War did produce some desired results. America might not have found the weapons of mass destruction it insisted justified invasion, but it did — along with its allies — depose a ruthless dictator whose unpredictability destabilized the Persian Gulf. Connections between Al-Qaeda and Iraq now appear to have been largely puffery, manufactured to justify military action to the ordinary Americans who bore the cost, both economic and human, of the war and occupation. But America made clear to the world the lengths to which it would go to protect its security interests.
But do those achievements justify the 4,500 lost and 32,000 wounded Americans? Perhaps. The better question might be, do they justify the loss of 100,000 Iraqi lives and the possibly irreparable damage to America’s status as global beacon for freedom and justice?
I recall sharing dinner with a friend shortly after the war’s start. “This war will be the first crack in America’s foundation,” my friend told me. “One day we’ll look back and see [the Iraq War] as the beginning of America’s end.”
Those comments still strike me as overstatements. But it’s true that, due in large part to the Iraq War, America’s reality has shifted. We fought a war we couldn’t really afford, for a people whose allegiances we misjudged, based on tragically mistaken justifications, with an ill-formed exit strategy. Our actions at Abu Ghraib revealed to the world that Americans, too, are capable of cruelty. The deaths of 100,000 Iraqis will stain our political relations in the Gulf for generations to come.
The chief consequence of the war for Americans is that we have been forced to confront the reality that America is fallible, our security depends on international cooperation, and until we tend to our own democracy’s blemishes, we have no business defining democracy for others.
I can’t imagine that the destruction of so many lives was unavoidable. But if these are the tough lessons we’ve learned, I’m glad such painful losses won us something.