Despite uncertainty, U.S. succeeded in Iraq

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Updated: January 17, 2012 8:17AM

The Iraq war came to a formal end Thursday, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta crediting U.S. troops for “the remarkable progress” achieved there. Success properly describes what American forces accomplished in combat at great cost in lives and treasure. Now comes in diplomacy and soft power, the post-war struggle to preserve and consolidate those hard-won gains — and the outcome remains far from certain.

That is due in large measure to things unknown about the nature of the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the role neighboring Iran and its revolutionary Islamist regime will play in the future of the country.

The politics of Iraq have yet to escape the history of its sectarian divide — Sunni oppression of the majority Shiites under Saddam Hussein and the wretched bloodletting between the two populations after the U.S. invasion.

Distrust often has produced political gridlock and more distrust. Major elements of the Sunni Awakening tribes, so vital to turning around the sectarian chaos and defeating al-Qaida, have been denied a place in the new Iraqi security forces. And Maliki ordered the arrests of hundreds of Sunni, alleged to be members of Hussein’s Baathist Party, on suspect Libyan-sourced information about an alleged coup conspiracy.

Dishonesty, influence-peddling and bribery are rife. Transparency International, which monitors integrity in government, found that only three out of 178 countries are more corrupt than Iraq.

Worse is the meddling by Iran. Its Revolutionary Guards supply our enemies who kill U.S. troops. The Shia mullahs ruling Tehran see increasing their influence in Iraq as part of their larger ambitions of Mideast hegemony. The Iraqi anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr spends a lot of time in Iran and represents a malign presence in Iraq’s politics.

The United States plans to keep 23,000 troops in Kuwait as a counter to Iran’s influence. In the end, the best foil to Tehran’s ambitions may be the years of enmity, including war, between Persian Iran and Arab Iraq.

President Barack Obama took note of the challenges facing Iraq and U.S. policy there in his “Welcome Home” speech to troops at Fort Bragg, N.C. “Now, Iraq is not a perfect place,” he said. Still, he sounded a positive note in saying “we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people. ... This is an extraordinary achievement, nearly nine years in the making.”

It has to be said that achievement came thanks in large measure to the troop surge President George W. Bush ordered at the darkest moment of the conflict when an American defeat seemed possible. In his remarks, Obama acknowledged the surge without, understandably, noting that he had vocally opposed it at the time.

The surge turned out to be a Bush gift to Obama, letting the president pull out troops from a successful combat mission rather than retreating in defeat. Now the question is, will the diplomatic aftermath go as well? Critics like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) complain that the administration’s failure to negotiate an agreement to keep a significant residual force there endangers the hard-won gains and emboldens Iran.

But this is an issue for another day. Today and its achievement belong to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops who served in Iraq, the 32,000 wounded and the 4,487 who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.