Daily Times

Jeb Bush, one of the Republican presidential hopefuls and brother of former President George Bush, accused President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of abandoning Iraq too early. Bush believed troops were withdrawn from Iraq before the mission was accomplished. The Bush brothers are not held in high esteem but on this issue it was difficult to dismiss the narration. Though Obama’s decision of retrenchment of troops resonated with the people, his advisers entrusted to oversee the drawdown failed to put in place an alternative plan to respond to any eventuality in the future.
Obama came to office with an unflinching pledge to terminate the unjust wars that his predecessor began. The war in Iraq cost the US treasury about $ 770 billion, killed 4,400 troops and severely wounded 32,000, many of whom would never fully recover. About a million Iraqis were killed and more than six million were displaced. Infrastructure worth billions of dollars was destroyed and Iraq will possibly never return to its pre-war level of peace and tranquility. A sovereign and independent country was invaded with no lawful authority, which consequently destabilised the region. In my previous articles on Iraq I had demanded that those responsible for the invasion should stand trial for the crime against humanity.
Obama redeemed his electoral pledge by bringing the Iraq war to a close. As a senator he voted against the bill authorising the invasion in 2002. He rightly warned that the war would lead to unintended consequences with unlimited damages to both the aggressor and the victim of aggression. The economic meltdown followed by the collapse of the housing market in the US was an outcome of excessive spending for the wars simultaneously conducted in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The de-induction of troops was negotiated with the Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He was opposed to granting immunity to the US’s residual troops stationed in Iraq. The Pentagon was uncomfortable with leaving behind troops in a foreign country without immunity. Consequently, the troops were withdrawn by 2013 without having a contingency plan. The senior officials of the State Department, led by Hillary Clinton, and the Department of Defence, led by Leon Panetta, cannot absolve the responsibility of the crisis that unfolded in Iraq following the draw-down of the troops. They were unable to comprehend the forebodings caused by 10 years of insurgency driven by sectarian violence. Within a few months Iraq began descending into sectarian riots.
The ill-advised de-bathification launched by the provisional administration of Paul Brammer resulted in the termination of large number of troops and commanding officers from active service. In the civil service, mid-level officers were installed as heads of departments while erstwhile senior officers were retained as subordinates causing anomalies in the administration. The chain of command, as a consequence, broke down, and defection and desertion ensued. The vacuum thus created was filled by people chosen not on merit but on sectarian consideration. Ideal ground was thus prepared for the growth of sectarian hatred and insurgency in the country. Muktada al-Sadr, the head of the Shia Mehdi group, and Ayatollah Sistani, the septuagenarian Shia cleric fell prey to sectarianism and escalated the insurgency.
Successive governments in Baghdad failed to assert their positions and instead followed the path dictated by the Shia clerics. Maliki’s government lost sight of the dividends of united Iraq and alienated the Sunnis and the Kurds, the two major communities in the country. Sectarian killings and revenge led to a bloodbath in the southern and central regions of Iraq. A Sunni cleric visiting the US in early June narrated stories of gruesome murders still taking place in the heart of Baghdad.
All these happened during the watch of the Obama administration, which did not realise that the mayhem was a prelude to greater catastrophe. Maliki’s government should have been strictly warned about the foreboding in wait and held fully responsible for its pursuit of a sectarian policy. Sunnis were marginalised to the extent that they were shown the exit door. Sunni tribes in Amber, Diyala, Tikrit and Hilla, which had helped expel al Qaeda, were subsequently betrayed by the Iraqi government. The Sunni youth and deserters, being humiliated and debarred from joining the army did not have to wait too long. They were welcomed by Islamic State (IS), which emerged from almost nowhere in the summer of 2014. IS championed the cause of Sunnis and captured one third of the central region. The government’s forces rapidly collapsed and retreated.
Maliki resigned and Haider al-Abadi became the Prime Minister (PM) with promises of reconciliation and reintegration but his words have not yet been translated into actions. Government departments, including the judiciary and military, are accused of corruption. About 55,000 troops are on the pay roll but do not exist. Meanwhile, the mayhem continues. On August 13, a deadly bomb blast in a Shia neighbourhood in Baghdad killed 60 and wounded a few dozens. Despite yearlong airstrikes against IS positions and over 3,000 US troops training and advising the Iraqi army, Iraq has struggled to retake lost territories.
Ten years of killings, abductions and destruction have wrecked social bondage and created deep divisions in society. It is doubtful whether serious efforts for reconciliation will heal these wounds and prevent the ultimate vivisection of the country along sectarian lines. In Washington, an official remarked that “partition might be the only solution”. Abadi condemned the remark and said that “Iraqis are making sacrifices in order to strengthen the unity of their country and defend it”. The State Department reiterated its commitment to Iraq’s integration and said that “we believe a unified Iraq is important for the stability of the region”.
Abadi reshuffled his cabinet last week but there is still no paradigm of reconciliation. In the absence of whole-hearted efforts from the political leaderships in Baghdad, Iraq will inexorably march towards disintegration. An independent Kurdish homeland in northern Iraq will serve as an incentive to the 15 million Kurds in Turkey who have been at war with Ankara for many years. Turkey will oppose a sovereign Kurdish state on its border. Saudi Arabia will not welcome the creation of another Shia country to its southeastern border, adjacent to Dahlan region, home to a predominantly Shia population. The oil fields in Iraq are located in such a pattern that it would be extremely difficult to arrange a fair share of the revenue amongst the partners. A fragmented Iraq might turn into a battlefield for proxy wars.
What is the way out? Those who wash their hands off by advising that Iraqis should sort out their own mess are trying to rewrite history. The mess was not created by Iraqis in the first place. The international community should come forward and work out a formula in concert with regional powers. Lack of action will be the recipe for a bigger catastrophe in this volatile region.

The writer is a former official of the United Nations