Part One: The Road Back to Baghdad

Three years after the American withdrawal from Iraq, the broken country we left behind has reared its ugly head and threatens to descend into sectarian civil war. In many ways, the United States is reaping the seeds it sowed in the manner of its exit from Iraq as well as our nearly total non-involvement in Syria’s civil war next door. The road back to Baghdad has been coming for the US ever since we withdrew from the country in 2011 (and, arguable, ever since we waged an uncoordinated mess of an invasion and occupation in 2003). 

Part one of this essay delves into what many have taken to calling “The Iraq We Left Behind,” and possible US strategies to address some of these issues. Part two will discuss the interconnected Syrian conflict’s ramifications in Iraq, and address the question of whether or not Iraq (or any of Syria’s neighbors) will find stability if civil war continues to rage next door. Part three will discuss the US opportunities to eek some good out of this international and regional disaster, especially with longtime adversary Iran.

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 Part One: The Road Back to Baghdad

Central in the story of Iraq’s re-descent into civil war (if, arguably, it ever left it), Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki looms as both villain and longtime partner. Allegedly selected for the Prime Minister post in a shadowy dealing between a CIA officer and the US Ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, Maliki went from being a relatively unknown but zealous activist in the pro-Shi’ite movement to Prime Minister of Iraq in three months’ time in 2006. Having fled Iraq after his political activities on behalf of the Shi’ite Dawa Party (now his political party) threatened to get him killed, Maliki directed anti-Saddam operations from abroad until the US invaded in 2003. According to Khalilzad in an article by Dexter Filkins, the US only exerted its influence in Iraq to help the election come to the result it wanted. Although American officials had been assured Maliki was "independent" from Iran, it became apparent that he was closer to the Islamic Republic than informants had admitted, and it is now rumored he was hand-picked by the Iranian Al Quds commander Qassem Suleimani. Yet from sideline supporter, America's relationship with Maliki grew in the coming years until the US openly supported Maliki in the subsequent 2010 elections against his secular opponent, Ayad Allawi.

Iraq: The Middle East’s Ticking Time Bomb

On December 18, 2011, Iraqis watched in mixed fear and jubilation as the last US tanks rolled across the border into Kuwait, marking an official end to the American-led invasion in 2003. Two years later in 2013, those fears seem to have borne out while jubilation is in short supply: civilian deaths are reaching levels not seen since the Iraqi civil war of 2007-2009, and massive attacks have become a regular facet of everyday life. In September alone, there were nearly 1,000 deaths, 800 of which were civilians. Even this was shy of the 2013 high of 1,057 deaths in July. Sectarian, regional, and tribal divides have widened, not subsided, and the Maliki government itself is a hotbed of corruption, poor governance, and has lost the public’s faith as a democratic institution. The current path of Iraq indicates at best a pattern of cyclical violence, and at worst a nearly unstoppable march back to civil war.

Qasim Ahmad Tahan carries the body of his 5-year-old son Walid.
Courtesy AP.

Yet chances are, you haven’t seen Iraq in the headlines in a while. Violent acts have become so frequent that they hardly make it on Twitter reports. On Monday alone, 15 car bombs went off in Baghdad, which, as the BBC’s Michael Knights points out, “would have been an unprecedented event...[i]n any other country.” In Iraq, it was the 38^th attack of this kind in the last 12 months. Given that the current security crisis began but did not end with the US occupation of 2003-2011, American policymakers should be scrambling to figure out a way to aid the Maliki government in combatting the violence. With a civil war next door in Syria and unrest in Egypt, instability is spreading like disease throughout the region in the wake of the Arab Awakening’s derailing by autocrats. Combined with US war weariness with Iraq itself, it appears that the US can or will do little to stem the tide of what is becoming a river of blood.