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Send this Essays Send this Essay Send this Essay As we mark the four-year anniversary of the American-led invasion of Iraq, we must consider all the evidence before us and come to an educated conclusion as to the best course of action for America to pursue.   I believe strongly that America must withdraw from Iraq.   This paper will outline the many factors that I believe lead to this conclusion.It is not overly pessimistic to focus on the reasons for going to war with Iraq, because understand the beginning of a story can better illuminate its most ideal conclusion.   The actual reason for invading Iraq, however, is something that historians will attempt to articulate for decades to come.   Different people have very different perceptions of why we invaded Iraq, but all of the reasons start at a common point: 9/11.We know, as a matter of widely-accepted fact, that Saddam Hussein and his government played absolutely no role in the 9/11 attacks.   We know this.   We also know, however, that if it w ere not for 9/11, we would not have invaded Iraq.   How do we account for this discrepancy? There was no causality; Iraq did not cause 9/11.   There was, however, some sort of correlation, which held that Iraq had something, something to do with the terrorist threat as it was manifested by al-Qaeda on 9/11.The Bush Administration attempted to illustrate this alleged correlation by saying that Saddam Hussein was a terrorist.   Since the people who attacked us were also terrorists, they were somehow related.   In terms of evidence that Saddam Hussein had been involved in specific acts of terrorism against the United States, however, there simply was none.There was also the fact that Saddam Hussein was a secular dictator who had spent most of his career torturing and killing religious radicals and Islamist terrorists of the sort that attacked America on 9/11.   America and Saddam Hussein had a common enemy in radical Islamists.   That is why America supported Saddam Hussein for many years.In addition, it was alleged that Saddam had stockpiled vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons (WMD) since 1998, when United Nations weapons inspectors had left Iraq.   Again, however, there was no hard evidence of these assertions, only rumors and an understandable lack of trust in Saddam Hussein’s word.The case for war held that after 9/11, we must overthrow Saddam Hussein before he gives his WMD to terrorists.   The flaw with this case was that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, there was no evidence of his cooperating with Islamist terrorists targeting America, and there was no evidence that he had WMD.So, in terms of the threat that Iraq posed to the United States, the only case that existed rested on huge leaps of faith and logic.   The second component to the case for war was that Saddam must be overthrown due to his brutality to the Iraqi people and due to the lack of democracy in the Middle East.   It was assumed that a lack of dem ocracy caused terrorism.   Unlike the case for WMD or ties to 9/11, this case was very easy for the American government to make.   No reasonable person could deny that Saddam Hussein was one of the most murderous leaders of the late 20th century, a sadist and a thug who belonged in a prison rather than a presidential palace.This, in part, is how America got sucked into this war.   Even if one did not believe all of the president’s assertions about the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the United States, the idea of overthrowing this mass murderer was very appealing to most Americans.   The problem was that there was very little attention paid to the job that America would have in Iraq after Saddam was overthrown.Broadly speaking, the reasons given for war were the destruction of WMD stockpiles, the crushing of alleged terrorist groups in Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the democratization of Iraq.   With these goals in mind, we will assess how the Unite d States has fared at each one and what the best course of action going forward should be.As we discovered after invading Iraq, Saddam Hussein had actually destroyed his WMD stockpiles in 1991.   This should be a major cause of embarrassment and concern for America’s intelligence agencies, but it can also serve as a relief to us in some sense.   The WMD threat is gone.   Saddam destroyed that threat himself twelve years before we invaded to do it for him.   Mission accomplished.As for overthrowing Saddam Hussein, that also has been achieved.   Saddam Hussein has been overthrown, captured, and tried and executed by his countrymen.   By definition, whatever threat Saddam Hussein may have posed to the United States in now gone.   So, again, mission accomplished.   If our only goals in Iraq were the limited and pragmatic ones of removing Saddam and his weapons, we could have declared victory and withdrawn from Iraq years ago.   We have other goals, however.   Reference to the brief list above tells us that the two outstanding tasks in Iraq are democratizing the country and riding it of terrorists.We must weigh whether we should stay in Iraq against the possibilities of achieving these final two goals and the costs this will entail.   I believe that, for a variety of reasons, the costs involved in pursuit of these goals are far too great and uncertain to justify keeping the American military in Iraq.We know that the number of Islamist terrorists in Iraq has increased exponentially since the American invasion.   In four years, the American military has not been able to destroy or significantly weaken these groups.   The most well-known Islamist terrorist group in Iraq is Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which did not exist prior to the American invasion.The fact that the invasion of Iraq created far more terrorists than it destroyed is not a reason to leave Iraq.   However, the fact that the American military has not been able to defeat th ese groups in four years of warfare makes it appear very unlikely that the American military has the solution to this problem.While the Islamist terrorist groups and the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime have killed thousands of American soldiers, most violence in Iraq is carried out by Iraqis on other Iraqis.   In other words, the war in Iraq is not primarily a war between terrorists and Americans; it is primarily a civil war between Iraqis.   In order to form a rational policy, Americans must understand that they are not at the center of this conflict; they are merely a side component to an Iraqi civil war.The rise of terrorist groups is directly related to the failure of democracy in Iraq.   After Saddam’s dictatorship was crushed, Iraq was opened to a flood of people and ideas, many of whom were hostile to the United States and to the idea of a democratic Iraq.   Again, the resistance to a democratic Iraq is not primarily driven by anti-Americanism; it is primarily driven by local factors.Iraq, like all Arab countries, was historically dominated by Sunni Muslims.   Since Iraq is the only major Arab state with a Shi’ite Muslim majority, a democratic Iraq by definition means an Iraq dominated by Shi’ites.   Many powerful forces in the Arab world, including most of Iraq’s neighbors, reject the idea of a Shi’ite-dominated Arab state.   This resistance does not revolve around anti-Americanism; it revolves around a split between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims that evolved a millennium before the United States existed.My goal here is to illustrate that the problems plaguing Iraq are local problems, with roots and causes stretching back centuries, that the United States neither created nor can hope to control.   Overthrowing a government and disarming a country are tasks that the American military can accomplish.   They did so swiftly and surely in 2003.   Changing the hearts and minds of millions o f Iraqis and convincing them to live peacefully together in a democratic state that is friendly to American interests is not a task for the American military; it is a task for the Iraqi people, or for nobody at all.Since our own military and political leaders have acknowledged that there is no military solution to the problem in Iraq, the American military presence there simply incurs escalating costs with little or no prospect of reward.   We will now examine those costs and see how they point to the logic of withdrawal.In terms of the human costs, we know with great precision what the toll has been on the American side.   Approximately 3,200 Americans have died, with about 24,000 wounded.   The Iraqi toll is harder to gauge and depends in large part on how the numbers are extrapolated.   There is no doubt, however, that the toll of Iraqi dead is at the very least ten times the American toll, and in all probability far, far greater.There are two considerations to bear in mi nd with these figures.   Firstly, while 3,200 military deaths is quite few compared to other American wars, it is far too many when one takes into account the most likely reward for these sacrifices.   In other words, when the point of the sacrifice is convoluted and ambiguous, the losses carry far more weight than they do when the goals are clear and the cause is just.Secondly, the scores of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed must weigh on the conscience of the United States.   While most of these Iraqis may have been killed by their own countrymen rather than the American military, the American military created the power vacuum that allowed violence to explode throughout Iraq.   Most of the Iraqi dead are not America’s enemies killed by America’s military; they are innocent people who the American military has for years been unable to protect.The financial cost has also been astronomical.   Unlike the Gulf War of 1990-91, American did not have many al lies when it invaded Iraq, so it has paid for the war itself.   To make matters worse, it has paid for the war with borrowed money, passing the bill on to future generations of Americans.   As the direct costs approach half a trillion dollars, one is awed by the fact that officials in the Defense Department speculated before the war that it would pay for itself via Iraqi oil sales.   Again, as with the human cost, the issue is not so much the figures as it is the gain.   What have we gained with our $500 billion investment?American reconstruction efforts have failed on a variety of levels.   One of the most important factors in winning the trust of an occupied population is to provide them with the everyday necessities and utilities needed to go about their lives.   Since the American invasion, oil output and electricity levels in urban centers are lower than they were under Saddam Hussein.   Unemployment is also rampant.   This is not to argue that America should no t try to fix the electricity; it is to argue that, after four years, why should we expect that they will suddenly be able to?As it became clear that the WMD stockpiles did not exist and that Saddam Hussein was permanently out of power, the original justifications for the war seemed to be evaporating.   Many came to feel that the WMD argument had been deliberately distorted; they felt they had been lied to.   For many Americans, however, there remained one satisfaction that it seemed impossible to reverse.   Whatever the mistakes made, the new Iraq could not possible be a worse place to live for Iraqi people than Saddam’s Iraq.   As we examine the costs that the Iraqis are paying, however, we can no longer be assured even of this.As noted above, Iraqis have less electricity now than under Saddam.   They are exporting less oil.   Under Saddam Hussein, the government had a monopoly on violence, which it used to brutalize and terrorize its own people.   However, the re was some semblance of order; one could walk down the street in Baghdad and not fear being blown up or beheaded while they shopped for groceries.   Now, although the brutal government is gone, Iraq is the most dangerous place on earth for the people who must live there.If there were no WMD, if Saddam is dead, if we have not improved the living standards or security of normal Iraqis in four years, and if Iraq is now engulfed in a civil war between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, why is the American military still in Iraq?   The administration holds that the democratically elected Iraqi government must be defended against terrorists, but this is to vastly oversimplify the nature of the problem and America’s ability to influence events.The elected Iraqi government is dominated by Shi’ite Muslims but, as noted above, the minority Sunni Muslims largely refuse to accept their legitimacy.   To most Iraqis, the civil war is not about democracy versus terrorism.   I t is about Sunni versus Shi’ite domination.   By supporting the Iraqi government, the United States is effectively siding with the Shi’ites against the Sunni in Iraq’s civil war.There are several dangers to this course of action.   Firstly, the American military should not be used to intervene directly in foreign nations’ civil wars.   This was one of the lessons of Vietnam.   Secondly, by siding with the Shi’ites, the Americans anger many of its traditional Sunni allies.   Thirdly, we have every reason to believe that the Shi’ites of Iraq are far more loyal to Iran than to the United States.   This should not surprise us, but it should make us pause before supporting them blindly.The administration insists on referring to Iraq as the central front of the war on terror.   When doubt is cast on this assertion, officials point out that Osama bin Laden himself has made this claim.   This approach is damaging for several reasons.    Firstly, we should not allow Osama bin Laden to dictate the context of our actions and thereby create a paradigm whereby leaving Iraq means surrendering in the war on terror.   Secondly, it ignores the fact that the American invasion made Iraq a nexus of international terror groups.   Thirdly, it is incredibly dismissive and contemptuous towards the Iraqi people.If this war, called Operation Iraqi Freedom, is really about what’s best for the Iraqi people, then America has made a grave error.   Certain politicians may claim that it is better to fight the enemy in Baghdad than in New York, but what does this mean for Iraqis and other Arabs and Muslims, whose hearts and minds we must win in order to win this war?   The American invasion caused the implosion of the Iraqi state, the opening of its borders, and a flood of literally hundreds and hundreds of suicide bombers into Iraq.   If part of our â€Å"war on terror† involves creating a magnet for terrorist s in other peoples’ countries, is this really in our best interest?   Do we decrease terrorism by drawing the terrorists into the neighborhoods of people we claim to be â€Å"liberating†?   The American invasion and occupation has made Iraq a haven for terrorists; does this decrease or increase the chances that Iraqi-based terrorist will attack the United States?The American war in Iraq must be stopped on behalf of two constituencies: the American people and the Iraqi people.   Both have been the losers in this war.   America lost the trust of many long-time allies, the moral high ground in the war on terror, hundreds of billions of dollars, massive amounts of military equipment, thousands of men and women, and a great deal of prestige and respect.The Iraqi people undoubtedly gained something, in that they are now free from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein.   However, they have subsequently lost much more.   Their standard of living has not improved noticeably , their capital city is the most dangerous in the world, and their society is being torn apart by civil war.If this war is costing the American and Iraqi people so much with so little gain, it must be ended.   The aftermath of an American withdrawal would surely lead to more chaos and bloodshed in Iraq.   The only point is staying, however, is if America can positively guide the conflict to a resolution.   Unfortunately, we have four years worth of evidence that suggests that Iraq’s problems are far beyond the capabilities of America to fix.   Indeed, they may even be beyond the capabilities of Iraq itself.