Five years laters....

In a couple days, we will come to mark the fifth year since the United States' invasion of Iraq (March 20). The Iraq "War" has turned out quite differently from from what most Americans expected. Within those 5 years, we've seen a very premature declaration of "mission accomplished," the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, his subsequent flight, capture and execution, the gross mistreatment of prisoners of war in Guantanamo, allegations of torture, a completely deteriorating public opinion of the war, increased instability within Iraq, new evidence that the popular justification of the invasion (Iraqi weapons of mass destruction) were false, perhaps even fabricated (source), deterioration of Iraqi democracy, nearly 4000 confirmed American Military deaths, about 30,000 confirmed non-fatal American casualties (source for both numbers), scores of non-American deaths and casualties, and more than half a trillion dollars spent so far. Quite a laundry list eh?

Let me remind you that the general reasons for invading Iraq were in the first place. Iraq was targeted because it was marked as a threat to conduct a terrorist strike on the United Sates. It was officially a preemptive war on our part- this was the only time a liberal democracy has taken part in a preemptive war (source: G. John Ikenberry). Yea, the United States hasn't been hit by a terrorist attack directly since the start of the "War" in Iraq, but do you realize how domestic society has changed since 9-11 in general? Before 9-11, I probably wouldn't have gotten a background check before applying for a flight school. Now, the government can see what books I've taken out from the library without a warrant (thank you USA PATRIOT act). Society has become fundamentally restructured- the lack of a terrorist attack isn't a result of us getting rid of Saddam Hussein, it's us becoming more paranoid at home. Dick Cheney still swears that invading Iraq has made the US more secure and that Iraq had direct ties to 9-11.

You can probably judge by my tone by now that I really don't like the "War" in Iraq. At the ripe age of 15 (Jesus, I was young back then!) I couldn't understand why we were invading Iraq in the first place. As I understood it, the 9-11 attacks were ideologically driven. Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda attacked the United States, not because they 'fundamentally hate our way of life,' because they want to scare us out of our obligations in the Middle East so they can reestablish the old Caliphate. Saddam Husein's Iraq, as I understood it, was a totalitarian dictatorship but a westernized one. Husein actively captured and slaughtered 'Muslim extremists' because he had his own ideological idiosyncrasies with people like Osama Bin Laden- in other words, Husein would have rather killed himself than collaborate with Bin Laden. So you can imagine how surprised I was when I heard we were going to invade Iraq and take down Husein. Why? We didn't even find Osama Bin Laden yet, the man we can directly place the blame of the 9-11 attacks.

There were other reasons given to why Iraq was invaded outside of this possible collusion as well, each one was just as ignorant of reality as the Husein-Bin Laden cooperation angle we were thrown. I already alluded to the claim that the preemptive strike on Iraq was to stop it before it became a real threat to the United States. This claim was on the basis that Husein was pursuing weapons of mass destruction. This doesn't make sense on so many levels. First off, UN inspectors didn't find anything before and after the invasion. Second, even if Iraq acquired weapons of mass destruction, how would they threaten the United States itself? At the height of the Cold War, the USSR never had a warhead able to transverse half the globe and strike the United States. The bottom line is that it's a very difficult thing to do- how would a developing dictatorial state acquire military resources that all states outside of one (the United States) did not have?

Don't bother telling me about biological weapons. Ever take a bio lab in high school or college? Yes. Remember how hard and annoying it was to culture bacteria for those labs? It's very hard. Do you suppose culturing smallpox is any easier? No, not at all. How do you suppose you can support smallpox to a potent degree long enough for it to be snuck into the United States? Umm... Can smallpox be engineered to only attack Americans? Oh, that means it'd probably kill Iraqis or other terrorists as well.

The last justification given for the invasion of Iraq is that the United States was bringing democracy to Iraq. Yay neo-conservatism! How's that working out by the way? There are so many things wrong with the notion of literally "bringing democracy" to non-democratic states just on a purely theoretical standpoint. I could literally write a thesis about the theoretical impossibilities itself (I am actually).

So given these, I wondered: why are we really in Iraq? I came up with a few theories, some of which are on the verge of conspiracy theories. Is it for oil? Judging by record oil prices and our seemingly apparent non-control of Iraqi oil fields- no. Was it a personal vendetta by George W. Bush to finish a job that he felt was left unfinished by his father? Along this line and neo-conservative thought I say a strong maybe. Most horrifying of all, was this war fought for the sake of a war; for the sake of having an excuse to control the masses? Was George Orwell's prediction twenty years too premature? Given the USA PATRIOT act and its tag-along legislation, I wouldn't be to surprised if this were the case. It's horrifying to even consider that the case isn't it?

The consequences of this "war" is tremendous. I probably mentioned this before somewhere on this blog. We decided to act unilaterally in this particular endeavor. By doing so, we've turned off many-a-close allies. For the first time in the post WWII era, we've had disputes with ideologically similar states as a result of this "war" (France, Germany and Japan to some extent are a few states in mind). Through our stubborn unilateral action, we've managed to further alienate other great powers we were trying so desperately to incorporate into international lattice of institutions and cooperation(China and Russia are the two that come to mind here). This "war" has essentially reset a lot of the progress made in the post Cold War years achieved by George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Russia and China, along with Iran, are a part of the first non-NATO military alliance since the end of the Cold War. This is what realists would call "hard balancing against the hegemonic power." So much for the great new world order and a culture of cooperation.

You know what's the best part of all this? There's no way out- none. We're stuck there. By getting rid of Husein's Iraq, we've left a power vacuum in that region of the world. Yes, Iraq threatened Israel, but it balanced against Iran. Now Iran will have free reign and who knows what can happen in the Middle East. We've taken over the role of literally balancing against Iran now. Unless Iraq miraculously becomes a stable liberal democracy immediately (read: it's not happening), we'll make Iraq into a resource-sucking proxy state to desperately maintain the balance of power in the Middle East (yes folks, we're talking about states and realism can be applied). We have to stay there now. There's the chance that leaving Iraq high and dry like we did Vietnam will result in benign consequences, but there's also the chance that Iraq becomes overrun by our ideological enemies (read: organizations like the Taliban and Al Qaeda) and that, in coordination with other states in the region becomes even more of a threat to US security than it already is. Of course, it's only a problem if the US maintains relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia and consumes oil. Remember, the terrorists want the US out of the Middle East in every sense of that phrase. That's no oil, no trade relations with anyone there- and that's not going to happen with a pull out of Iraq- they'll remain hostile against the US.

Great things folks. This is quite the little mess we have to work out.