Last week the House voted to affirm the war in Iraq and to reject the establishment of any withdrawal date at this time. This week the Senate continues to debate the issue. In light of these developments, and after finishing The Assassins' Gate, a riveting book of reporting about the war by George Packer, here is what now must be said about Iraq.
The legal and moral traditions that require a high burden of proof for initiating a war exist for very good reasons. They appropriately reflect the terrible human costs of war as well as the stress that war places on the relations between nations. This war has cost our nation alone 2,500 dead, over 18,000 wounded, nearly $300 billion, and profound political distraction and division. It will make or break the presidency of George W. Bush.
Saddam Hussein was a horrible tyrant, and it is clear from Packer's account that many Iraqis did greet his fall with gratitude and relief. The best case for the war would have been humanitarian intervention and democratization. If ever there were a case for such a humanitarian war, this would have been one. But that was not the argument that was made prior to the war, and this has undermined its political legitimacy ever since.
The planners of this war either completely underestimated the complexity of the enterprise or simply did not much care what happened after the fall of Saddam Hussein. They believed in regime change but not nation building. Therefore we accomplished regime change rather easily but then found ourselves with a politically decapitated country in our laps, and no real plans for helping that country make a transition to self-rule. Packer describes this as “a carelessness about human life that amounted to criminal negligence.” It has taken the better part of three years for the U.S. to develop the personnel, strategies, and skills that could help Iraq rebuild as a nation. Whether even these improved resources will be able to succeed in this Herculean task remains to be seen.
The Iraqis have resources for developing a viable democratic state but also profound hindrances. The major problem is their lack of Iraqi, rather than sectarian/ethnic, identity. At least a large portion of Iraqis seems to identify primarily as Shiite, Sunni, or Kurd, along with a handful of other group identities. The lack of security in Iraq since the war has hardened these tribal and ethnic identities as frightened people tend to retreat into their core identities. Having been terrorized and tyrannized by Saddam for 25 years, the Iraqis have had no civil society sector and little experience in self-rule. The current government has the potential to succeed in Iraq, as it is the product of free and fair elections in which many participated. But it could just as easily collapse, leading to full-fledged civil war and even genocide.
The kind of Islam practiced in Iraq has been, not to put too fine a point on it, of limited help in establishing a just and peaceable democracy. Iraqi religion is too often allied with sectarian identity, with violence, with sexism, and with submission to authoritarian leaders/power brokers. Passion for God is among the most powerful forces in human existence. Religious leaders who can highlight and proclaim the life-affirming and peacemaking elements of their traditions rather than the alternatives will be among the most important contributors to a better Iraq — and a better world. (The implications of this point extend far beyond either Islam or Iraq.)
Our troops in Iraq have performed admirably under horrible circumstances. They are undermanned, at times they have been under-equipped, they serve in a desolate environment, and their lives are threatened every day by an insurgency for which they were not adequately prepared when most of them arrived. The question of how one best supports such troops is always open. Support does not mean indefinite and unquestioning continuation of unwise policies. But it does mean admiration, respect, and gratitude.
We should leave Iraq when the Iraqi government is ready for us to do so. Sovereignty over Iraq belongs to the new Iraqi government. We should leave no sooner, but no later, than when they ask us to. We should provide the security help that they now need until they say they no longer need it. It would be just as irresponsible to leave Iraq before our presence is no longer needed as it was to enter Iraq in the manner that we did. We broke it, so we bought it. We must not compound one mistake with another.
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— David P. Gushee is University Fellow and Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. www.davidgushee.com