America’s war in Iraq has come to an end but the war in Iraq goes on. Nine years have passed. More than 4,000 American lives have been counted and discarded in the dustbin of history. The cost in treasure has been high, nearly a Trillion dollars, and will grow higher still as the cost of caring for the tens of thousands of Americans with physical and psychic injuries resulting from combat is counted. At least 100,000 Iraqi lives have been taken in the process. What has been the profit flowing from this investment in blood and treasure?
Do we leave behind a stable and democratic Iraq? Have we created a model of a pluralistic society designed for the people of the region to aspire to? As the last American soldier leaves Iraq we cannot know. History’s accountants have yet to tote up the costs and benefits of our nine year investment and strike a balance. Only when they complete their task will we be able to assess the return on our investment.
In Baghdad we leave behind the largest American Embassy that the nation has ever created. It is protected by an independent army of mercenary security forces. In Baghdad we leave behind and authoritarian regime at once dominated and divided by sectarian interests. We leave behind a country still wracked by sectarian violence and endangered by the embers of a civil war. Will we see tomorrow a besieged regime in Teheran fan those embers into flame?
In Iraq we have neither achieved a military victory nor suffered a military defeat. We withdraw, as we withdrew from Saigon a generation ago, leaving behind an uncompleted reconstructed nation to whom we have surrendered the task of securing itself against internal and external enemies. It remains to be seen whether the last act in this ongoing drama will be marked by the last helicopter lifting off from the roof of the American Embassy in Baghdad.