More or less at 5 in the morning (local Iraqi time) of 20 in March 2003 began the operation Iraqi Freedom. The country was invaded by a "coalition of the willing," as the then US president George W. Bush called it, mostly made up of the United States, the United Kingdom and other minor contingents. The black flags that now dominate fairs in some of the major Iraqi cities, suggest that something went wrong.
The dialogue between the political and military world has never been so disastrous as in the operation in Iraq. A mixture of serious strategic errors and important undervalued aspects led to the current condition. Last September 26 even President Obama in a momentum of self-criticism called the invasion of Iraq "a big mistake". The most ferocious antagonists of the foreign policy with the stars and stripes were not held by joy and despite this premature enthusiasm the real question remains unsolved: What lesson do the United States of America think they have learned from Iraq?
Considering the recent events in the Middle East, it does not seem that Washington is cultivating this great far-sightedness in terms of foreign policy. The admission of the error is a laudable and completely appreciable fact but it should be followed by a substantial change of course.
In an attempt to dispel the obscurantism behind the Iraqi bankruptcy we spoke with prof. Stefano Ruzza - professor of "Conflict, Security and State Building" at the University of Turin.
Professor Ruzza, could you explain the purpose of the mission in Iraq and how the resulting military campaign was conducted?
Broadly speaking, the intervention can be divided into two phases. The first, lasting just over two months (19 March - 1 May 2003), was aimed at bringing down the regime of Saddam Hussein, hoping that this would allow local undefined democratic forces to flourish and transform the country. The second - which immediately follows the first one - is much longer and reaches the withdrawal of the 2012 - it has come to terms with the illusion behind the first and that is with the fact that democracy would not have arisen spontaneously.
The second phase also had to try to maintain order in a failed country also due to military intervention. Counteracting extremist indigenous or allogeneic groups (such as al-Qaeda) that found in Iraqi chaos an ideal context of operations and affirmation, and guarantee a security framework that would allow presentable elections.
Iraq immediately presents itself to analysts as a great powder magazine. The different realities present in the region, the struggles for power and the enormous economic interests have aggravated the already tense situation after the fall of the regime. The Western approach should have been multidisciplinary and above all projected towards the future. There are so many aspects that have been left to chance, as if democracy were a process that can be imposed and that's it. Unfortunately, getting closer to democracy has prerequisites that cannot be ignored, first and foremost the political will to dialogue with all the factions present on the scene of the country concerned. Currently the error is repeating itself in other Middle Eastern scenarios where the desire to do something just to do could present us the bill very soon. After the departure of the American contingent, Iraq slipped into the darkest chaos.
In your opinion, could we attribute this phenomenon to a weak exit strategy or are the causes also other?
I don't think that the exit strategy is the only cause, I think that at most it aggravated the problems, which however were already well alive and present in the country, far from being peaceful and orderly before the 2012. In my opinion the major critical points are upstream. Sectarian violence above a certain threshold in Iraq is not a post-2012 novelty, but rather post-invasion. The problem could perhaps have been contained after the demolition of the regime, with a policy of less extreme political renewal, which did not melt the structures of the state together with those of the regime and which did not allow a distorted and partial democratic logic to allow a substantial dictatorship of the majority.
A key moment that contains a missed opportunity is the Anbar Awakening of the 2006, namely the rejection and expulsion by the Sunni populations located in western Iraq of the Qaedists. This moment was indicative of the will of the Sunnis not to be subjugated to the extremist Islamism and of their confidence in a possible Iraqi state that left them the right space. Instead, the policy of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has marginalized the Sunnis to such an extent that they do not leave any of them any alternative but to fall back into the arms of extremists, in this case ISIS. The approach of the government that will have to be born after a long period of tension and political repression is a problem that requires skills and a willingness to cooperate.
The one who painted Professor Ruzza has all the appearance of a draft of current Syria. Regardless of whether the positions are in favor or not of the Russian intervention it is important to remember that the exclusion policies of one group against another have never led to anything. Politics, whether we like it or not, is a continuous compromise resulting from the foresight of a ruling leader. From the Iraqi powder keg the lessons that are learned are not just military. The conduct of military operations in Iraq has been severely criticized by the Democrats and those advocates of a self-produced peace.
Which, according to you, the errors that emerged from the Iraqi theater regarding the military conduct of operations and cHow can we apply them to modern scenarios - Libya and Syria - avoiding falling back?
The problem is not military, but political, indeed: a link between the political dimension and military objectives. From a technical point of view, the invasion campaign in Iraq has been almost flawless, obtaining a rapid and almost painless (at least from the point of view of the attackers) neutralization of the Iraqi military machine, as well as the demolition of the regime. The problems arose because the achievement of this goal was disconnected from a long-term political strategy, on the type of political transition that was intended and how to obtain it. The de-baathification of lightning has done nothing but collapse the structure of the state and increase the reasons for friction between the different ethnic groups, leaving the military mired in difficult, confused activities with an uncertain outcome such as counterinsurgency and statebuilding. There have been other false steps, but they concern questions that are purely non-military (the main example is the 2010 elections). We would also have to ask ourselves some fundamental questions on the doctrine of counterinsurgency, and on how much such a type of activity can obtain results and with what times.
Changing scenery, the military's skills and capabilities to eliminate or downsize any armed factions in Libya, Syria or Iraq are certainly not lacking in the West. Leaving aside the (central) problems of political competition between various states, at regional and global level, which inhibit too muscular operations by NATO or ad-hoc coalitions with Western leadership, or the lack of political capital available to date to justify new interventions after the failures of the past years, the crux of the matter is that military action must be put into operation for purposes that go beyond the neutralization of the opponent alone.
In summary, we must not ask the military instrument what the military instrument cannot produce. In Libya and Syria it is first of all necessary to clearly define what we intend to achieve, and only secondly, to understand if and how the military instrument can be of help. The same intervention in Libya of the 2011, moreover, is in itself an excellent example of how the external military force can easily demolish the existing structures of power and government but not so easily replace or rebuild them. Many argue that the commitment in Iraq has been completely in vain and that it has irremediably worsened the fate of the country.
In your opinion, what are the important steps to take in Iraq to revive the country from chaos?
If we accept that war is the continuation of politics by other means, then even before we ask ourselves the military and security problem - which also exists - we must ask ourselves about the political condition that underlies it. To sum up, the Iraqi situation has long been invalidated by a weak, disputed and too pending "democratic" government in favor of the Shiite component of the population. This left an important minority in the country - the Sunni minority, which held the reins of the national government before the 2003 invasion - substantially marginalized and therefore prey to extremist movements. Until a viable political alternative is offered to Sunnis that allows them to have the right space and political recognition, then there is no solution they can hold. In this it is hoped that the policy of al-Abadi is more far-sighted than that of its predecessor and that the rest of the world moves shrewdly to support policies aimed at sectarian openness and reconciliation, as well as to contain ISIS militarily. Focusing on the second point without keeping in mind the former risks producing only short-term results: after all, even AQI was substantially dismantled, but it is precisely from its ashes that ISIS was born..
What we have described with Professor Ruzza is a country, Iraq, which could be the key to avoiding the tragic mistakes of the past. However, the inability to make unpopular decisions is bringing a new "Iraq phenomenon" throughout the Middle East. There are few simple rules that must be followed to guide a new state towards the democratization of its policy, the first would be to prevent our policy from interfering with theirs.
Americans are portrayed as masters of interfering with the internal politics of other states but we must remember that all wars must have a return. For every bomb dropped and for every goal destroyed in return someone will want something. Always.
(photo opening: US DoD)
