"For the record, the gravestone marking this calamitous misadventure will duly read: "Iraq, 2003-2011. RIP."
*
As often is the case, Kipling had the right of it long ago:

"And the end of the fight
is a tombstone white,
with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear:
'A fool lies here
who tried to hustle the East.' "

The Iraq war has left a festering sore in the region, a neocon debacle that truly represents all that is hideous in the hypocritical politics of greed that fuels the military industrial complex.

They've technically still got the "contractors" in there (cough cough mercenaries), no doubt some secret facilities still operational, a largely pro-American government in place...so not overly much changes does it?

Besides, this was a pointless war. Far from diminishing Iranian hegemony in the region, they actually exacerbated it and now Iran has potentially more influence there than the US. The fighting has killed tens of thousands of civilians, no WMD's found, terrorism actually increased, and more Arabic people hate the US for the actions of their elite.

This was a war to eliminate Saddam Hussein's government all along, to secure oil supplies and strengthen US strength in the region. It was never about anything else. But it has caused thousands of deaths, untold misery and instability. Even the covert aims didn't work, let alone what the public believed.

When, oh when, will Bush and Blair face war crimes trials in The Hague?

No mention of Sadaams invasion of Iran?No mention of who funded a war that lasted eight years?.No mention that this war was the start of the recent Shia/Sunni divide?And a number of other important omissions,like who provided the gas that killed and injured so many Kurds and Iranians.It certainly didn't come from "mobile gas works".
Both Sadaam and Bin Laden were on "our side" for a while,but how strange neither of them got to tell their tale of what it was like to be working on behalf of others.
Millions of Shia have died since 1980, yet Simon ignores their deaths and not just the the manner in which they died, but who was ultimately responsible.
It was not Iran!

Everything was so groovy in the middle-East before the Yanks turned up

"They've technically still got the "contractors" in there (cough cough mercenaries), no doubt some secret facilities still operational, a largely pro-American government in place...so not overly much changes does it? " - benad361
*
"A largely pro-American government"??? Have you been keeping up on recent events? That "largely pro-American government" just turned us down flat on keeping combat troops in Iraq past the end of 2011. That "largely pro-American government" has been evicting US businesses from the Green Zone and arresting many of the Sunni Awakening leaders that we recruited and backed during the Surge. Most of the leaders in that "largely pro-American government" are Iranian-backed and have been running interference for Iranian agents in Iraq for some time now.

To paraphrase the immortal Douglas Adams, evidently this is some strange usage of the term "largely pro-American" that I wasn't previously aware of.

That's as maybe, but they sure as hell didn't make things any better - Their actions were tantamount to pouring petrol on a previously smouldering fire to kick start it.

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

Hmmm. Didn't the Guardian call for Tony Blair's re-election in 2005?

Oh yes. So it did.

doughcnut

Everything was so groovy in the middle-East before the Yanks turned up

Did you read the article before making a sarcastic post?

The whole point is that it wasn't 'groovy' before the war, and that massive lack of 'grooviness' is about to become very important.

Iran were looking after their own interests though weren't they?

There is no possible way Bush and his muppets could NOT have realised Iran stood to gain so much from the US invading Iraq. It's just too obvious. The only logic that can be applied to it as far as I can see is that Iran was next on the list, the Iranians knew it, and they had to make sure Iraq never became a launching pad for the US to attack them.

Mind you, I don't think Iranian influence in the Iraqi government is as dominant as suggested. The Iraqi people certainly don't want that, but there is enormous trade potential between the two.

You never know but maybe one day politicians of whatever colour will learn from history that war doesn't solve anything.
All it does is bring misery to millions and vast profits to a very few.

Nah, It is simpler than that:

Stupid boys playing at being men.

Wisdom resides in the East, Greenhorns in the West.

In betraying the public trust, they did incalculable harm to the western democratic tradition that is held up as a model for the rest of the world.

Held up by whom?

In the last 60 years, we have bombed and maimed civilians all over the globe, always in the name of peace, of course. We have manufactured evidence to justify illegal wars, invasions and bombings. We have destroyed vast areas of the environment in an insatiable drive to possess other peoples resources. We have overthrown governments, killed their leaders and backed regimes that have tortured, assassinated and imprisoned their own people by their millions. We have sold arms to any tin pot dictator who wanted them, but once they stepped out of line, we destroyed them.

Some model.

doughcnut

## Everything was so groovy in the middle-East before the Yanks turned up##

Sarcasm.. always helpful when higher forms of wit have fled US bombardment.

The ME had many many problems ..none of them helped by the most powerful nation in the world and the most intractable made even more so.

B

stevetyphoon

You never know but maybe one day politicians of whatever colour will learn from history that war doesn't solve anything.

Oh please. As misguided as the Iraq war was let’s not pretend that there haven’t been plenty of other justifiable wars.

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

"45 minutes..."

Iran: as Shirley Bassey sang " It's all just a little bit of history repeating"

Pity our politicians don't seem to have read Kipling. What do They larn 'em at them posh public schools?

Anarchoscience

Absoulutely agree with you! There can be no authentic closure until these criminals are confronted with their crimes. My own fear is that those same American boots will be diverted to Iran given the level of 'sabre rattling' by the usual suspects. When it comes to foreign policy in the US it is the Military who make the decisions. In the case of Iran it is given the seal of approval by Israel who have many Nuclear weapons.

At least we in Israel are sure that when the chips are down the buck stops here and taking chances with arab partners that wish your destruction based on apparent superior military strength is a dangerous game AND POSSIBLY A FALLACY..........tangible gains not promises or worthless words for territory.

Well you can't say that the likes of Blair, Bush, Cheney et al weren't told that the likely outcome was that Iraq would descend into chaos, internecine warfare and that Iran would emerge as the real victor of the Iraq farrago. Many voices tried to warn them but they let their egos get in the way. America "won" the war but lost the subsequent conflict with the people of Iraq.

My point is that war is in itself not a solution.
I will agree that if others have been misguided enough to go to war then there may be justification to go to war to end that war as in WW2.
But my main assertion is that war doesn't solve anything.
I doubt that there has ever been a justifiable war in itself.

Interesting to see that there is someone, almost a visonary given the usual take on the subject, using the 'B' word.

Since Churchill and 'This is not the end' the 'beginnings' are usually misread and misinterpreted.

Morons make ' mission accomplished' speeches for affect with little or no knowledge of the fact that it is other peoples business to decide on what happens in the longer term after we have come home.

The US is used to walking away from futile causes and post WW2 their foreign policy file does not stand up to close scrutiny.

I was naive enough, for a while, to believe that Vietnam cast too long a shadow on the American appetite for exported wars.

The fact that the UK was on the coat tails of Uncle Sam in Iraq will remain a blot on our record for years to come. We had been there before and we should have known better. Naive its true because every generation of politicians is destined to fuck up and learning from history is simply not included in the curriculum.

Watch this space; Now this is not be the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.

A disaster from pretty much every aspect you can think of.

Anti-terrorism? It made the terror threat to the country worse, as Blair was warned it would by his own Intelligence agencies.

Human rights? The death toll is now almost certainly in the hundreds of thousands - at least; around 15% of the total pre-war population, or 3-4m people, were displaced, many by deliberate acts of ethnic/sectarian cleansing; torture is still rife and systematic; it's hard if not impossible to get a fair trial, and the justice system shows 'disturbing continuity' with Saddam's system; not to mention the 'coalition' atrocities like Falluja, Haditha, Abu Ghraib, Isharqi, the El Salvador Option, and the general and daily mistreatment and killing of ordinary Iraqis.

Economic Development? According to Amnesty International in 2010, 'A senior government official told the UN in October that 5.6 million Iraqis were living below the poverty line, said to be a 35 per cent increase compared with the period before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003', and in 2011 'Shortages of water and electricity supplies were chronic, and unemployment was above 50 per cent'.

Democracy Promotion? One of the most under reported aspects of the Arab Spring has been the Iraqi governments own brutal and deadly crackdown on protesters there (including shoot to kill orders from the very top). Human Rights Watch have reported how 'Increasingly, journalists find themselves harassed, intimidated, threatened, arrested, and physically assaulted by security forces attached to government institutions and political parties. Senior politicians are quick to sue journalists and their publications for unflattering articles'. This suppression of peaceful protest, and intimidation of the press, when taken in conjunction with the widespread torture and repression being carried out by the state, points to the reality that Iraq is far from being the picture perfect democracy supporters of the aggression against Iraq would like you to believe.

International Law? The invasion was blatantly illegal, and so says the U.N. Secretary General at the time, the Foreign Offices senior legal advisor at the time, the Foreign Offices deputy legal advisor at the time, and the U.K.'s senior law lord at the time. It had the effect of undermining the absolute prohibition on aggression. The disastrous results seen in Iraq since 2003 are living proof for why such aggression was prohibited in the first place. It set a dangerous precedent, and one that some of it's more crazed supporters are keen to repeat in Iran.

For these reasons and more, I think the whole thing has been of the most disgraceful episodes, and worst war crimes, of the early 21st century.

No doubt the private security firms will remain to hold up the puppets.

And their view matters since, as many regional analysts believe, it was Tehran, not Washington, that "won" the war in Iraq.

To be frank, I don't think any of us have much of a clue as to what's really going on within this murky world of realpolitik...

The military-industrial complex has its grubby hands in the mix, as does BigOil, and who else... who knows!?

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the CIA didn't give the Iranians the RQ-170 Sentinel, so as to justify lobbying for increased defence expenditure...

During the height of the Cold War, the US and Soviets were quite happy to continue meeting up in space... and during the Cuba Missile Crisis, the supposed arch-enemy of the US continued to maintain their military presence at Guantanamo Bay.

Akin to Britain maintaining a Naval Base on the Jade Bight during WW2.

The international community effectively handed control of Iraq over to the Iran backed Shia community, so whatever is going on, it's with the wholehearted support of the US.

As long as we continue to allow our supposed democracy to be undermined by corporate interests and other shady lobbyists then we better get used to this surreal 'Alice in Wonderland' reality...

"Pity our politicians don't seem to have read Kipling. What do They larn 'em at them posh public schools?" - delphinia
*
In fairness to our public schools, I would point out that Bush and Obama both mainly attended private schools.

economic weakness in Baghdad, the questionable capabilities of Iraq's rebuilt army

Compared with pre-sanctions Iraq, the economy has been smashed flat, totally destroyed, and there has been no recovery. That is not mere "economic weakness."

The army has not be "rebuilt". It was 50 divisions, ten of them heavy mechanized. There was advanced artillery. There was an air force of hundreds of aircraft. Now there is a rabble, a militia that is divided among various warlords.

The US leaves behind devastation. Millions are refugees abroad, and millions more are internally displaced. Medical care, electricity, and clean water are gone.

The whole Arab world sees it. That is the price. The West is stuck with a clear vision of what it has done. Only the West refuses to see it, and makes weaselly excuses like those quoted here.

Iraq will be a stain on America until those who launched the war are held accountable and punished for their actions.

There are so many unanswered questions. One thing I would know is what were the civilian casualty estimates given to Bush prior to the invasion. There is no doubt some were given, either on or off the record. If the number was say between 10,000 and 20,000, then he should recieve 20,000 charges of pre meditated murder. He can be charged with 200,000 plus counts of negligent homocide for the rest of the deaths.

Bush executed numerous convicted murderers as Texas governer. Probably the most deaths any of them were responsible for were a dozen, which mean Bush has the worst of em beat by a couple hundred thousand. How this man sleeps at night is beyond me.

How likely do Guardian readers think it is that the US, having invaded Iraq to secure permanent access to its oil, and having changed the country's constitution so as to make trade unions (especially oil company unions) illegal, is packing up and going home?

Just do an internet search for US bases in Iraq. Today CNN reports four US bases still operational - their names are Kalsu, Echo, Basra and Adder, which it says are staffed by 6,000 US troops. The site militarybases.org reports more than a dozen US bases still functioning.

We have wrecked our own economy, caused massive environmental damage and killed hundreds of thousands of people to secure that petrol. It's ours.

Strummered
14 December 2011 4:28PM
The Iraq war has left a festering sore in the region, a neocon debacle that truly represents all that is hideous in the hypocritical politics of greed that fuels the military industrial complex.

I have to wonder whether a perceptive Roman citizen said the same thing in the Third Century after Valerian was trounced.

Of course this is a bogus story! The US leaving Iraq - I don't think so!

As alexcox points out above the US will maintain Iraqi operational capabilities in anticipation of the invasion of Iran which must be on the cards in the next 90 days or so given that Iran are talking about shutting down the Straits of Hormuz. It will be a two pronged attack from Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly continuing harassment from Israel.

As I've said before keep don't let your gas/diesel tanks go below half...

How can the US withdrawal be " hugely welcome" if it leaves behind massive destabilisation? Likewise how was it wrong to get rid of Saddam if leaving him in power would have resulted in the continuing repression of his people?

One can only conclude that massive destabilisation and brutal dictatorships are always preferable to people like you where Bush and Blair have been involved.
Never mind the suffering, feel the righteous indignation.

Aside from the maimed and psychically scarred, the most toxic legacies are (i) grim affirmation of might-makes-right (a/k/a international law is for chumps); (ii) torture, including its rendition cousin, is acceptable; (iii) as long as their burdens fall on a minuscule few, wars of choice will continue to be the preferred policy tool for resolving geopolitical disputes; and (iv) proof that an elected leader's deity-inspired obsession -- expressed as the noble-sounding "it is my firm personal belief" -- is enough to take countries to war and to exculpate him from responsibility its consequences.

Colin Powell was one of the very few American's that seemed to know his arse from his elbow concerning Iraq - then he sold out. Imagine if Powell had kept to his principles. I recently read Normain Mailer's excellent book concerning Iraq:
Why Are We At War?

You say Iran...

achievement, with a massive assist from the US, is to have eliminated Iraq as an obstacle or potential rival to its drive for regional superpower status.

Drive you say. What drive is this.
Just because of Bush's abject stupidity and Blair's vanity Iran was made stronger.
You have got to stop blaming Iran for Western hubris.

It was handed on a plate

After the end of Persian Gulf War in 1991, Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outlined his vision for efficient and decisive military action. His plan is now referred to as the Powell Doctrine, although there is not an actual formal document named as such. Powell, currently the U.S. secretary of state, has recently invoked the Doctrine in articulating the justifications for the Bush administration's preparations for war in Iraq. Essentially, the Doctrine expresses that military action should be used only as a last resort and only if there is a clear risk to national security by the intended target; the force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy; there must be strong support for the campaign by the general public; and there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged.

Powell based this strategy for warfare in part on the views held by his former boss in the Reagan administration, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and also on his own experience as a major in Vietnam. That protracted campaign, in Powell's view, was representative of a war in which public support was flimsy, the military objectives were not clear, overwhelming force was not used consistently, and an exit strategy was ill defined.

Mr Tisdal, this is an abysmal piece of "journalism" by a typical stenographer to power.

You know perfectly well that the US has no intention of leaving Iraq to its own devices, it still has enormous military bases which will be manned by US personnel after the US "withdraws", only these personnel will not be called troops, they will be called "security personnel", "advisers", "aid agents" or some such euphemism, in the creation of which US have become masters.

The US has the largest "embassy" in the world there, manned by some 20,000 "diplomats", it even has an airfield, as opposed to Iraq which still has no air force. The US surrounds Iraq and can step in at a moment´s notice. It has not spent 2 trillion dollars to go in, just so that the Iraqis could vote.

You say Bogus

US claims about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction have had a similarly chilling impact on counterproliferation efforts. When Washington denounces Iran's nuclear activities, its words are greeted with undeserved scepticism in many quarters.

UNDESERVED? It is completely deserved, and the western media would be incandescent with rage had any official "rouge state" or Russia done the same thing. This is the sort of thing you would expect to have read in Pravda, now sadly its commonplace in the msm.

And, in summarising the balance at the end of the "withdrawal", you might have spared a sentence for the hundreds of thousands (by a very conservative estimate) killed by western sanctions, shock and awe, etc. Or the millions of refugees and orphans and widows created by the "war". Or that the country´s infrastructure has been destroyed, as has its society, the country is uninhabitable owing to the use of DU and cluster bombs, lack of water and electricity because the west, in its concern to bring peace and security to Iraq, took care to first bomb its utilities and hospitals.

You also might have mentioned that Blackwater, who have created such terror there, have profited obscenely, and are hated by the Iraqis, are now going back under a new name.

This is a dreadful peace of "journalism", which is not fit for publication in Pravda or Izvestia. Why do I have to learn about facts (such as Blackwater´s return) from Russian Television (RT, now my source for proper information) rather than the msm?

SVQ.....Attack Iran, and Bushs big Iraqi experiment goes up completely in flames(even more so than it has). While attacking Iran from Iraq, better leave behind a pretty large contingent to deal with the raging insurgency there that will result.

Its really simple, you can have at least the hope of an economic recovery from the Bush depression, or you can have a war on Iran. You cannot have both.

Attack Iran, wreck the economy. Its fairly simple. Bush knew this, and Obama knows this, thats why its unlikely there will be an attack.

And not a word about the motivation of the US neocons who led the idiot Bush into this disastrous war...

yesyesnoyes

##Iraq will be a stain on America until those who launched the war are held accountable and punished for their actions.##

Forever then. Cheney yesterday was calling Obama a wimp for not doing a lightning raid to get the spyplane back. How on earth did get so powerful... why wasnt he stopped by some socially responsible homocidal maniac? :)

B

They will no doubt be leaving behind a large garrison of 'security contractors'.

You underestimated the number of mad people this time. Do it better next time.

What's the so-what in all this? If Saddam had remained in place, he would still at some point have gone, and all that you have described would've happened any way.

It's a bit a bit like a surgeon carrying out an unnecessary operation, bodging it up, and then buggering off to leave everyone else to clear up the mess.

Then patting himself on the back for a job well done on the way out.

Tisdall not Jenkins, sorry

One factor that may indirectly save Iraq from future strife is the probability of civil war / revolution in neighbouring Syria. The black market price of munitions has increased dramatically with tons of arms being smuggled out of the country. A similar situation occured in Lebanon in the early 90s as tons of arms were smuggled out to fuel the war in Yugoslavia.

Why Are We At War?

“I must say it again: In a country where values are collapsing, patriotism becomes the handmaiden to totalitarianism. The country becomes the religion. We are asked to live in a state of religious fervor: Love America! Love it because America has become a substitute for religion. But to love your country indiscriminately means that critical distinctions begin to go. And democracy depends on those distinctions”

(p. 108).