Follow us on social

Screenshot-2023-03-27-at-9.08.12-pm

Iraq War cheerleader reunion: it wasn't the failure you think it was

Robert Kagan claims US standing across the globe is just fine. The rest of the world wants “more America, not less.”

Analysis | Reporting | Washington Politics

The 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, which took place earlier this month, prompted reflections among many American foreign policy practitioners and observers, both those who supported and opposed the war in 2003. 

Among those reflections were mea culpas, including from leading cheerleaders like Max Boot, who wrote in Foreign Affairs : “Regime change obviously did not work out as intended. The occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq were, in fact, fiascos that exacted a high price in both blood and treasure, for both the United States and — even more, of course — the countries it invaded.” 

There was, however, little sense of regret for the invasion on Monday at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, which hosted the second event in a series that “seeks to provide a fact-based analysis of the Iraq War.” 

The AEI description of the event read that it would address “the object of mythmaking and politicized history” in the war. This, however, was not referring  to the mis- and disinformations that led us down a path to war in the first place (and that AEI itself did so much to propagate in the media and via its well-attended “black coffee briefings'' and close association with Ahmad Chalabi in the run-up to the invasion).

Instead, the emphasis was on the question posed by panelist Robert Kagan:  “Why we have spent twenty years treating this like the worst disaster that has ever befell the United States, which it most assuredly is not, by any measure?”

Danielle Pletka, senior fellow at AEI who, as AEI’s vice president of foreign and defense policy studies, moderated many of the “black coffee briefings'' 20 years ago, agreed it was important not to focus on the war through the “jaundiced” lens of twenty years of hindsight, but rather on understanding the temper of the times.

Predictably, the AEI panelists largely agreed that the invasion was justified at the time, and that, if there were any failures, they were limited to errors of execution, especially in the  invasion and the subsequent occupation. In that context, a number of explanations for the war were offered by various speakers.

Stephen Hadley, George W. Bush’s deputy national security adviser at the time, focused on what Americans had “forgotten” in the twenty years since the invasion: the horror felt by the American public and the administration in the aftermath of 9/11, the anthrax attacks that followed it, the general fear of weapons of mass destruction, and how it had all combined to turn Bush into a wartime president. Furthermore, he added, “how brutal Saddam Hussein was in terms of his own people, in terms of a ten-year war against Iran, the [1990] invasion of Kuwait, and the use of chemical weapons against his own Kurdish population.”

In Hadley’s telling, the alternative to an invasion would have been to give Saddam a “get-out-of-jail free card,” a counterfactual in which Hadley predicted sanctions may have been lifted, Baghdad could have developed WMDs, and Iraq might have again invaded Kuwait and possibly other countries, such as Saudi Arabia. 

Kagan, who spoke on a separate panel alongside historian Melvyn Leffler, argued that the impetus for the war was neither Saddam’s alleged WMDs, nor a part of the war on terror, nor for control over Iraqi oil, but rather the pursuit of primacy, or, as he put it, “trying to solidify what seemed to be a democratic world order that we could support.”

Kagan argued that part of the reason the war has become unpopular among Americans over the past two decades is because they misunderstood it to be part of the global war on terror instead of a continuation of the late-20th century project of building and maintaining the so-called liberal world order. 

When he was challenged by Leffler about whether, given the enormous impact of the invasion on the Iraqi people, American servicemembers and taxpayers, and regional stability, the war did in fact help maintain world order, Kagan responded: 

“That’s not the question we’re grappling with. If we know the outcome of every action we take, in its entirety, before we take it, that would make it a lot easier to make decisions. The problem is we don’t know what the outcome is going to be. (...) We could imagine a worse historical future, even than the one that you just elucidated, if we had taken another route. The problem is not ‘can we weigh the costs and benefits of a war that we’ve already undertaken?’ The difficulty is deciding what do we do when we’re [on] the spot”

In the rare moments that the speakers did address the long-term implications of the war, Kagan dismissed concerns about how the war impacted Washington’s global standing, ignoring the neutral way in which much of the Global South has responded to the war in Ukraine, and other ways in which the conflict in Iraq had eroded confidence in the U.S.

“It’s affected Americans' feelings about their role in the world much more than it’s affected the rest of the world’s feelings about the United States,” he insisted. “The notion that the United States suffered a lasting blow to its position in the world is belied by what we’re seeing around the world today. All we’re hearing from the rest of the world, unless you’re Russia, China, or Iran, is they want more America, not less.”

Robert Kagan, Stephen Hadley and Danielle Pletka (Brookings Institution/Flickr)
Analysis | Reporting | Washington Politics
Where are the US ships on the Gaza aid mission now?
File:US Navy 030530-N-0000X-002 Sea trials of USNS Benavidez (T ...

Where are the US ships on the Gaza aid mission now?

QiOSK

The Army and Navy ships that have left the U.S. for a massive humanitarian aid project in Gaza are still making their way across the Atlantic, with two still at ports in Florida and Virginia. It will likely take until mid-April for the vessels to reach Gaza and begin building a temporary causeway to facilitate the entry of life-saving aid into the strip.

Looking at real-time satellite imagery tracking military vessels, it looks like the USAV Gen. Frank Besson Jr., an Army support vessel that left Fort Eustis, Virginia, on March 10, has been moored and presumably refueling at a port in the Azores, Portugal, since Friday. It is at the half-way point between the U.S. and its final destination of Cyprus (nearly 5,000 nautical miles total). At an average speed of 10 knots, its journey will take nearly two more weeks, depending on weather conditions, once it gets going again.

keep readingShow less
Pressure on Biden for Gaza ceasefire appears to be working

Algeria's Representative to the United Nations Amar Bendjama speaks with U.S. Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, during a vote on a Gaza resolution that demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan leading to a permanent sustainable ceasefire, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, at U.N. headquarters in New York City, U.S., March 25, 2024. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Pressure on Biden for Gaza ceasefire appears to be working

QiOSK

The United Nations Security Council finally managed to pass a resolution on Monday demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza — the first true indicator that pressure on President Biden to address the war’s calamities is working. The passing of the resolution was followed by spontaneous applause in the Security Council, which is highly unusual. The last time this happened was in 2003 when France’s Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin gave a historic speech against the Iraq war. The applause reflects the immense exasperation with Biden's efforts to keep the war going.

All countries supported the measure with the United States abstaining. Ten countries put forward the measure —Algeria, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Switzerland — that is, all of the non-permanent members, or “elected members,” of the Security Council.

keep readingShow less
Moscow attack proves Russia — and US — have lost sight of priorities

People lay flowers at a makeshift memorial to the victims of a shooting attack set up outside the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the Moscow Region, Russia, March 24, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Moscow attack proves Russia — and US — have lost sight of priorities

Europe

The Islamic State terrorist attack in Moscow is the starkest possible reminder that despite the war in Ukraine, Russia and the West also still have some of the same enemies.

What the terrorists — ISIS-K, an Afghanistan offshoot of IS, took responsibility — did in Moscow, they have done in Paris and Manchester — and will do (and did do, on 9/11) in New York and Washington, if they get the chance.

keep readingShow less

Israel-Gaza Crisis

Latest