The High Cost Of Retreat For Iraq

Iraq: The High Cost of Retreat -- Raphael S. Cohen, National Interest

Almost a decade after the United States military launched a massive operation to clear the militants out of Fallujah, Al Qaeda’s black flag is once again flying over the city and security forces are preparing for yet another large-scale offensive to retake the city. The event is a momentous one, but one that needs to be kept in perspective. Unlike some have argued, the second fall of Fallujah is not analogous to the fall of Saigon. Al Qaeda is not the Viet Cong, much less the North Vietnamese Army. While Al Qaeda can spark sectarian violence, they lack the military power, the outside backing, or the internal support to seize control of Iraq—like the Communist forces did in South Vietnam just shy of four decades ago. Still, Al Qaeda’s dramatic resurgence—and more broadly the return of sectarian violence—only two years after American forces left Iraq must give us pause and prompt a reassessment of American policy.

First, this rise in violence should inform our understanding of the past. By all accounts, the 2007 Iraq Surge was a stunning success: within a year of its execution, all major violence indicators fell between 40 to 80 percent and civilian deaths declined by 82 percent from their peak in November 2006. And yet,the Surge was not about winning “hearts and minds” or fundamentally shifting Iraq’s internal dynamics. Indeed, if polling is any indicator, the United States never won the heart or the mind of the average Iraqi. Long after violence declined, a February 2009 ABC News, BBC and NHK poll found that 73 percent of Iraqis had “not very much” or no confidence in American forces, while 69 percent thought that American forces had done “quite a bad” or a “very bad” job in Iraq.

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My Comment: A sobering assessment on the situation in Iraq .... and the U.S. decision to leave the country in 2011.