That's what Pyrrhus supposedly said of Sicily as he left form home after his non-defeat/non-victory.

"What a fine field of battle do we leave to the Romans and Carthiginians."

Adding insult to injury, the Romans attacked him on the sea journey home.

Oh well, let's not dwell on Iraq, such a downer. Brighter fields beckon southwards. Noble Ethiopia, beloved of the gods as Homer had it. I'm sure with some grit, a positive attitude, and innovative public-private partnerships America will see many future successes in Africa.

... one of the vexations of the Iraq adventure (war hardly seems the word) is that the originating authority, the Bush administration kept changing its claims about what the war aims were. Initially, we all recall, to avoid a mushroom cloud from the detonation of nuclear weapons that didn't exist. The residual aim seems to be regime change; that was achieved. The current regime governs an even more split nation than Hussein ruled, and like him, seems to torture the odd unfortunate citizen as state policy. Iraq 2011 is in some ways a shell of Iraq 2001, having lost virtually all of its Christians (a small population) and an enormous share of its professional men and women who didn't care to be bumped off in their homeland because they did not worship Allah Shi'a style.

So the achievement, if any, is an Iraq Not Quite As Bad As Hussein's. It's been expensive to this point, and Washington is struggling valiantly to pour a whole lot more of taxpayers' money, and the lives of occasional military personnel into keeping some sort of presence there more or less forever. That ain't the usual idea of victory.

Some of Iraq's middle class that fled has started to come back, and a new middle class has also emerged within the country.

Invading armies, from the time of the Romans in Britain down to the present have always created economic boons for some. But that, in itself, is not a cause to be proud of.

How long would this new class survive, particularly the Kurdish economic miracle, a massive US withdraw and divestment from the region?

LITTLEMANTATE,

I think you're going off of stereotypes instead of reality. The Iraqi middle class is based off the Iraqi state. The state is the largest employer and investor in the country. Iraq's private sector is very small.

In terms of foreign investment in Iraq, the U.S. is 5th and only 4.7% of the total, and largely concentrated in the energy sector. Turkey has way more than any other country.

2010 foreign investment in Iraq
Turkey $14,883 34.9%
Italy $5,292 12.4%
France $4.243 9.9%
South Korea $3,269 7.7%
USA $1,997 4.7%

http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2011/04/foreign-investment-almost-doubles-in_29.html

And those numbers for foreign investment are in millions.

Littlemantate:

Funny you should mention Kurds.

Kurds are everywhere: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey (even Afghanistan).

The pattern of their movements amongst and between the countries is as fluid over history as over recent times (Syrian/Turkish Border issues in the 1980s and 1990s) which squeezed a lot of Kurds into Iraq (unrelated to the current Kurdish dispute issues in Iraq of 2008-2010.

Look at Syria, Look at Turkey. Look at Ngorno Karabak? Look at Afghanistan even. A minority population in very challenged circumstances.

Kurds were reviled at times by the Arab majority as Syria's governmental barking dogs (as were Druze), and now, may, or may not need a place to go (fast). These would be refugees from a country with strong history of taking in Iraqis, and the arguably safest Kurdish base. What will Iraq's refugee policy be if all hell breaks loose in Syria? (and particularly as to Kurds?

How solid are Kurds in Turkey? That's a whole different history.

There's kind of an ironic mindset by Americans (who believe that they are very footloose, but often have very deep roots (100 years) to place, that because these ancient historical places look old, the population must always have been there. Not so in almost all these areas.

Substitute Kurds for Yazidis (as Kurds often do), or Aramaic peoples, or all too many Afghans, and you find very transitory populations who are not really, in a deep historical sense, the resident population---there are just so many refugees differentiated by years and decades, but seldom more than a lifetime.

At the local level, without actual property records and any sense of history, we understand very little about all of this, or where it might go.

Joel:

Thanks for some of the relevant numbers that bring facts to the discussion.

People forget the huge interactions that did, and will continue to go on there.

I don't think many people understand, for example, the French influence there or in Turkey, Syria, etc...

Like Van Buren thinking that Iraq's troubles began and ended with 2003, and the 100,000 Iraqis dead from a Civil War, which was very much about settling scores left unresolved from the prior Iran/Iraq war where 400,000 officially died, maybe another 200,000 to 300,000 ended up in a pit afterwards, and a 20th century history that saw its share of foreign "kings" and political heads rolling down the street.

The Anfall was about I-I, not US. Thousands of bodies in mass graves were about II, not US. Saddams's WMD fake-out was not to scare US. Tens of thousands of Iraqis actively participated in all this stuff (and the Civil War and aftermath) for, perhaps, legitimate reasons to themselves, which had little or nothing to do with Donald Rumsfeld (even he just made things worse).

Oh, I forgot. That whole history of challenges and instability within Iraq's territory didn't start in the 20th Century either. Pick a century, but don't blame them all on the US.

Hard to tell much about the past, or actual causations from the refrigerated comfort of the passenger compartment of an MRAP; sometimes it helps to study the area a little bit.

I always found it interesting to sit in the original throne room in the center of the Republican Palace (rebuilt after the Iranian attacks) and imagine the history of pre-Saddam Kings, the Arifs, etc., that went before us in the continuing curse of those who occupied that building.

It has always been hard to be an Iraqi.

I stand corrected on the perception that the US is the economic powerhouse behind the Iraqi middle class.

But my question still remains concerning a US withdraw. The US still loses if, to sustain this Iraqi Middle Class, the US must remain in the region at a high cost in terms of money and the hard to define costs to a society constantly hyper-vigilant and under attack by groups like Al Qaida due to a presence in a hostile region. This is merely a continuation of the US' subsidizing the economies of Europe, Japan, and Asia.

The Iraqi middle class lives off the Iraqi state which is funded by oil revenues. In fact, Iraq is the most oil dependent country in the region. It has little to do with the U.S. presence. If the U.S. stays or goes the middle class will still be there and hopefully continue to grow.

Kunino and I shared comments on Peter van Buren's "Checkbook Diplomacy" article (FP, Sep 30).

Mine responded to a commentor's (Bluebers) accurate comments that FSOs have a professional specialty in reporting, not Iraq reconstruction, as follows:

"Bluebers is correct that FSOs have no training or qualifications in much other than reporting: That is their professional task.

Having said that, there were some very smart and capable FSOs in Iraq, either doing what they were professionally qualified for (reporting) or, doing good things where possible.

The old style FSOs, the kind that lived with family in many overseas assignment and brought many life skills with them, did some remarkable things, as did the very newest ones, often joining after substantial experience in and around war zones (Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc...).

The former came early on (to answer Crocker's call) and the later came in later 2008 (but never in big numbers).

Unfortunately, Van Buren represents that worst standard deviation across the board.

Anyone knowledgeable about any of the subjects he writes about so comically understands, as Kunino references, that there is much more to the story.

Children's art, for example, is a routinely therapeutic practice for war survivors, and, if done well, helps to engage the community in understanding itself, including, through the naivety of children, illuminating many of the shared experiences of an entire family, village or town. If done by a bewildered and ill-prepared local NGO group with no understanding of the task or purpose, and with no follow up, it becomes simply a make work project for otherwise destitute women (mostly widows, often displaced, and with many mouths to feed). Laughing at this scheme, or its actual content, purpose and benefit is the same as looking out from your air-conditioned MRAP and laughing at the survivors.

As for chickens, MND-North (Northern Iraq under MG Hertling) began a systematic analysis of the poultry chain in early 2008, which, in part, identified all the destroyed agribusiness assets (grain mills, hatcheries, slaughterhouses, fattening barns) and began systematically targeting the core problems---lack of market access (road systems), and knowledge/access to nearby resources (due to lack of security). Example: Underused hatcheries due to war disruption.

Everyone knew of the Tikrit Poultry processing facility, which newbies in 2008 were always trying to rehab as their "low-hanging-fruit" accomplishment, but civilian and military leaders (including FSOs) knew there was no point in re-opening it until the bigger problems were solved (market access, underlying supplies of chickens, etc...).

There was a great deal of information sharing going on in 2008 between MNF- I and the various MNDs (including MND- Central).

How this joker came along in 2009 and got this ridiculous poultry processing sham going (as described in his book) is, perhaps, best described by a bureaucracy burning up the last of the funds after the serious resources and oversight had moved on.

There is no dispute that from the Bremer days on, many mistakes were made. But for a serving FSO to be purchasing chickens to run them through a non-functioning poultry house on days when VIPs and reporters came, solely to delude them into believing something was operating when it was not, is not consistent with the reporting skills for which a serving FSO is actually charged. Fraud is fraud. Waste is waste. Very poor personnel assignments sometimes happen.

Myself, I was one of those emergency civilian senior advisors brought in in 2007 and 2008 to make sure these practices were curtailed, and, while finding plenty of bad examples (as told I would before I would) found abundant support from military and DoS leadership levels to change things.

My handful of senior civilian cohorts found no shortage of people working hard under very trying circumstances---especially in Embedded PRTs (small groups assigned to military units at the town levels), who, unlike Van Buren, were always in search of good ideas to take back to local Iraqis they had contact with.

Van Buren, if his tales are true, seems to have defied all the odds, making every mistake he could possibly make, without any apparent guidance or competence. It is just too incredible.

Maybe if he had accurately reported this stuff in real time up the chain, with an accurate description of what was going on, someone could have stopped it, instead of leaving him to stumble so chaotically and unproductively around Iraq for a year.

I doubt there was ever such a report."

I assume that DoS's reluctance to send an FSO home (a possible career ender) at mid tour explains why he was recycled to two different EPRTs. He just didn't improve.

Glad to see the Iraqi Oil Industry is up and running and paying the nation's bills. But that isn't quite the same as stating whether a US presence in the country will prevent a collapse.

Per the economic data, the Cassandra-esque statements by US civilian and military officials concerning a US withdraw seem to ring hollow if Iraq is an economically viable state. At this point, a continued US presence in Iraq seems, as I hinted at, to be merely a new location in the ME for a massive US presence, which, as a potentially stabilizing force (emphasis on potential; we've never seen the region without a large US presence) serves to subsidize the economies of East Asia, Europe and, perhaps, Iraq.

Littlemate, the U.S. military presence in Iraq has very little effect upon the country today. Most Iraqis never see U.S. troops anymore. U.S. influence overall has waned. Violence, insurgency, and the Special Groups have largely been at the same level since Jan. 09. The economy is completely dependent upon oil so international markets decide its fate, not the Americans. If the U.S. were to leave tomorrow that situation would not change.

reputation. Especially if you go to a party where there aren't any nice boys.

We are there for entirely venal reasons. And if we dropped all pretense maybe we'd end up with a better foreign policy and engender less hatred. Nobody likes a hypocrite, even an angst-ridden one who means well.

With the notable exception of Mosaddegh, and we know what the US did there, name me one ME leader in the past 100 years that the US could have done business with and felt good about it, per our current demands of a responsive, non-violent government, but one that also protects minorities and grants rights to women. If ME history since the 19th century has shown, you can't have it all. Or if you try, the US is gonna come and get you, as Mosaddegh learned. I'm no expert, but based on my reading all the leaders who tried to reform their governments and extended protection to minorities and women did so autocratically in the face of popular and clerical opposition.

Well LITTLEMANTATE, I'm pushing the 100-year time envelope, but Mustafa Ataturk comes to mind as a man the U.S. could do business with (modern Turkey in general). However, in the grand scheme of geo-politics, Mubarak of Egypt met America's requirements once upon-a-time.

Of course as far as going to parties goes, one must never forget that as much as you may think you are the life of the party, there will always be someone who doesn’t appreciate your humor. . .And although prattling-on while guzzling a fine Parigot Brut, I recall Carthage is of key importance to Roman history, being the first greatest opponent, nearly bringing Rome to defeat. But Rome did prevail, maybe we will too. . .but the cost?

TYRTAOIS,

Great example. I had him in mind as the classic example of an autocratic leader who pushed through reforms in the face of resistance, from all sides. People forget that Ataturk had to surpress groups that were even more nationalistic or pan-Turkist than he.

You probably know more of this than me, correct me if I am wrong, but I've read his most fervent followers, outside the Turkish military, are the Allevis, not surprisingly. I can think of no figure in the US for any demographic who has this amount of worshipful respect, maybe MLK for African-Americans, or JFK for baby-boomer Lefties. I could be proven wrong, but if political power in Turkey continues to be held by Anatolian religious conservatives expect open revisionist histories on Ataturk in the future. I met some of these expat "Turks", some of whom claimed Kurdish ancestry once abroad, and in private conversations they weren't quite as respectful of Mustafa Kemal as are their more irreligious countrymen.

On further consideration of Carthage, Pyrrhus and Rome, Pyrrhus is significant because he represents the beginning of a power shift from the Greek East to the Roman West. Up till this time, Rome was in the junior position, barely civilized rubes from the back of beyond. Definately a point worth considering when thinking about the rise of new powers.

Nice comments, and I'm impressed, you being a decentant of southern ride runngers and all, that you know of the Alevi!

Anyway, I think when we talk of the Roman Empire, or any great nation which the United State of America is, we should look toward the east and the Byzentines. I've always been intrigued by how they created and sustained their empire. . .and as J.A. English wrote of T.E. Lawrence, "big ideas in the realm of war, war was not only an affair of flesh and blood, but one of ideas."

Toujours Fidele

That is to say southern ridge runners (to spell correctly) from the Blue Ridge if I recall?

RBB:

Having spent some time studying these things, you really hit a nail on the head.

The Iraq we came to was still struggling to get past the Iran-Iraq War, then the Gulf War and sanctions.

While much fault can be attributed to the US occupation after 2003, it was already in such serious straights that forensically determining whether Colonel Mustard, while found dead in the library, actually died from the pipe wrench to the head in the bedroom, the poison in the bathroom, or the gun shot in the living room.

The US Occupation was icing on a cake that had long-ago caused serious internal damage, including the Civil War, the roots of which were in the prior ones.

I refer to the Reagan/North-era arms sales to the Iranians, and the concurrent war-business that former-and-future Defence Secretary Rumsfeld was discussing with Saddam's Baathist gang. It was all there, in the Time Magazine coverage.

Selling arms and intel to both sides of the 1980's trench-war wasn't one of America's proudest moments. And yes, we were in competitive collusion with Russia and the W. Euros, bleeding the Arab and Persian Shia. That and the glorious 1991 anti-personnel cluster-bombing of Shiite conscripts was the brand-image Team Bush led to Baghdad in 2003.

I'll be surprised if any elected Baghdad gov't openly supports (or even admits to) permanent US military presence in Mesopotamia, or even Kurdistan. It's interesting that '3,000' is the number of uniformed troops being floated in Congress for 2012. The 2008 Withdrawal Agreement calls for none, by Iraqi reckoning.

I figure that a full airborne brigade RDF is the minimum, to back up a similar number of contract troops guarding our Tigris campus. Our embassy/nest-o-spies must have half a mile (or more) of non-river perimeter to cover, in the middle of mortar city.

I had some friends, some time ago, who were athiest Allevis, at first glance it might seem contradictory, but you probably understand how that was. At the same time, and through different circles, I also had a good friend who was a pious fellow from the East. Talking with him and others of similar backgrounds I learned a good bit of unofficial Turkish attitudes, between extended attempts to get me to revert (one doesn't convert, after all). Talk about different takes on recent history.

The discussions sparked my skepticism and curiosity so I explored the matter on my own. So I started to read about Turkish nationalism, which led me to Pan-Turkism. It is amazing how open Turkey can be and, be so political (nobody is apathetic it appears) and still be so rigid on discussions on its post Ottoman history, including Ataturk's ancestry. Also amazing is the uneasy relationship between hardcore Turkish nationalism and their Muslim identity as Turks. The attitude of some gray wolves, those who haven't openly opted for their Turkic version of neo-Paganism, towards Arabs, in particular, reminds me of some forms of Christian Anti-Semitism. The incident (resolved?) between Youtube, Google and Turkey over videos insulting Ataturk and Turkey shutting down the site for sometime is a perfect example of this.

And what's even more amazing is that the most fervent nationalists are sometimes from groups that weren't part of the main Turkish ethnos like the Allevi or the Turkified Laz.

Americans obviously love to bring up their role in the Iran-Iraq War, but it was a rather minor one. Yes we gave intelligence to Iraq and provided them credits for trade as well. The amount we gave simply paled in comparison to what Baghdad got from Russia, France, China, etc.

1980-1990 Major Arms suppliers to Iraq
1. Russia $19,309 mil
2. China $4,928 mil
3. France $4,658 mil
4. Brazil $556 mil
6. U.S. $201 mil

For one thing, your 'donor list' doesn't even include Saudi Arabian deep pockets, and they had a major interest in staving off revolutionary shiism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran–Iraq_war

"United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, as a counterbalance to post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, Special Operations training, and direct involvement in warfare against Iran"

My numbers weren't for donors but arms sales as is plainly written at the top. Yes, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the other Gulf States poured millions of dollars into Iraq to fend off Iran during the war. That only proves my point that the U.S. role was miniscule to what it was getting from other countries.

The Saudis and the Gulf States gave around $50-$60 bil in aid, credit, loans, etc. to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. Iraq borrowed another $30-$35 bil from Western and Japanese banks, a minority of which were American. Its WMD and nuclear programs were mostly aided by Europe, specifically German and French companies. Its secret police/intelligence agencies were trained by the East German Stasi. Its' economy and bureaucracy were based upon the Soviet system. From the 1970s-2003 Saddam considered Russia and France two of its closest allies. During the war it got $19.3 bil in arms sales from Russia, $4.9 bil from China, and $4.6 bil from France.

The only field where the U.S. really became dominant was trade by 1988. It became one of the major purchasers of Iraqi oil and was selling a large amount of wheat and rice to Iraq.

I'm not trying to say that the U.S. did not help Iraq during the war, but really, their assistance was not that much compared to Iraq's traditional and regional allies who provided the vast amount of funding and weapons during the conflict.

Toward the end of the Second Gulf War (Desert Storm), I know the CIA and DIA both had issues as we neared Basra, that Iraq might collapse into three separate enclaves: Kurds in the north; Sunnis in the central region around Baghdad, and the Shia in the south. I also know that it was U.S. policy that the territorial integrity of Iraq be maintained, primarily to counterbalance Iranian power in the region, because a vaccum or complete collapse of Iraq might be too tempting for the Iranians to ignore.

Additionally, I believe Dick Cheney defending not going onto Baghdad at the time also, stated something about who would we put in place to run the country, along with saying taking out Saddam Hussein wasn't worth any soldiers lives.

Apparently Cheney he had a change of heart . . . Hey get it? Change of heart.

Do you know of anyone outside intelligence circles who called any of this c. 2002-2003?

It's hard to tell--without rereading more than I have time for at the moment--whether the specific issues you raise were predicted or warned against, but the State Department jump started The Future of Iraq Project as early as Oct. 2001 (telling in and of itself, I think).

This link provides a bit of history and overview: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Future_of_Iraq_Project

Give them credit for being suspicious of the INC and Chalabi, and note the last two subheadings:
* Pentagon planners ignored an eight-month-long effort led by the State Department to prepare for the day when Saddam's dictatorship was gone.
* State Dept. Study Foresaw Trouble Now Plaguing Iraq

You can follow the links and make your own judgements, but it's important to note that the Bush Admin. quite deliberately and steadfastly ignored this major public/private interagency effort.

Thanks for the link. I 'll have to hold off on wading through all 13 vols, but I did read some of the links. While I did find specific mention of possible criminal activity following the downfall of the regime, I haven't come across anything about a big sectarian divide, or the role of Iran.

But the study project was not ignored... this according to Larry Da Rita -- so it almost certainly was .(Da Rita is a perfect reverse barometer)

On the other hand:

"It was mostly ignored," said one senior defense official. "State has good ideas and a feel for the political landscape, but they're bad at implementing anything. Defense, on the other hand, is excellent at logistical stuff, but has blinders when it comes to policy. We needed to blend these two together."

The Chalabi thing is telling. If I recall correctly, I first heard about Chalabi's connections to the Iranians in the fall of 2004. That's when I had my first major "Uh Oh" moment... and actually began to consider how the war might look through an Iranian's eyes.

As soon as it became apparent that there would be no "Real Men Go To Tehran" moment, I thought: wow, we really did them a bunch of favors: removing a hated enemy, installing a co-religionist regime, and discrediting ourselves in the eyes of the world (the WMD thing)... all these must have been on the Persian's wish list...

Yes and no. It was obvious, but, obviously, not to those in the positions of influence.

Was it so obvious that no one anywhere in any medium ever thought to mention it? I ask because I am having a hard time finding explicit warnings before and during the run-up, concerning both a sectarian civil war and, more importantly, what Iran might have gained as the result of a US invasion,

I'm looking for sources I can cite. Do you know of any?

I'm confused by your reference to "his" writing style.

This is a Tom Englehart/American Empire Project piece (it says so in the book). Just like the folks who author the web site as "his" comments.

By a book, donate to TomTom, vote for Ron Paul. Sure.

Bait breathe to see whether a serving FSO can report his involvement in, according to him, multi-million dollar waste, fraud and abuse, laugh about it, and not expect to be investigated for not reporting it.

People like MMCMILLAN are always around us. Don’t let it drive you away. . .give back an articulate rebuttal. . .I’d be curious as to what you would say?

After all, if you have visited Israel, you know there is a middle-class of Israelis, who while trying to earn a living, would like to see a peace agreement between them and the Palestinians along with the Arab world in general. . .Unfortunately, there are many complications never explained to Americans. . .both North and South Americans.

I actually think FP should be way more active than it is at purging posts from commercial spammers, nutjobs, haters and punks whose idea of sharing their views is to write a post on one thread and paste it onto several others. The McMillan person to whom you refer is one who ought to be banned.

The difference between Tom Ricks' blog and the others here is that posts from people like that usually get ignored, and their posters heckled. This has something to do with the high quality of Ricks' regular readers, and something to do with the fact that Ricks engages his audience actively. I have noticed that, as blogs have consolidated into big sites like FP's, fewer bloggers seem to do this.

that we're losing good thought and analysis to revisionism, and oh! so soon. We haven't even gotten all the troops out of Iraq and the call to charge the Moral Ground is upon us. At risk of raising the ire of Capt Nolan with my hate America first attitude, open honesty regarding the Iraq experience must be viewed.

If we tap dance around the fact that we wasted so much to acheive nothing, we will suffer a repeat of the delusion that we can affect the lives of others with bringing so much violence down upon them. We will forget the lessons, even before they have been fully investigated and published, of the massive waste of aid in dollars that were lost to criminal elements, fraud, pay-offs, protection, and out right theft. Mismanagement of the war upon Iraq ranks so high in the scale of disgust that it stands alone without equal.

If one wishes to parade their high morals and smirches on their sensibilities get off your white horses first and do this: stand at a football field and imagine it covered over the boundaries with two pallets high of bundled $100 dollar bills. That's about the cost of Iraq so far. Imagine the pallet level has just gone up to 6 high--over your head--that's projected cost of the waste.

Now take thought of your closest loved one. Rip them away from you--they're gone, viloently, while you just stand helpless and watch. Imagine the concept of forever. With all your training to effect change, take charge and accomplish the mission, you have failed from the start. You can't fix it, you're F'd, you're powerless, you cannot fight time. That too is Iraq.

The only thing you can do is not do it again. I don't know that Iran "won". I would concur that we "lost". Let's not repeat this insanity. Leave the indigents alone, let them figure it out themselves. I know of a couple of bridges and roads nearby that could use some attention.

GSF, well said.

GSF:

Same as JP. Lost a brother early in life (teens); there is never a day that he is not in my heart and mind. I counted every one of those soldiers lost in Iraq as my brother, as did many others. (MG Hertling and his pocket full of pics of every soldier).

Your son's full measure is not lost on many of us.

As a free-speech absolutist, I thank you and salute your approach.

In any emotionally-charged discussion, the line between provocation and intense conviction can look fairly thin. Better, methinks, to let readers decide.

Some would-be provocateurs assume names close to the monikers of people they disagree with -- an infantile tactic that's self-nullifying among people having a rational discussion.

I avoid responding to provocateurs -- whose real motivation, at least for those who are actually sane -- seems to be to blot out rational discussion with screeching and name-calling.

As one who opposes America's alliance with Israel, I also ignore accusations of anti-Semitism -- which have been so robotically over-used that they actually give air cover to genuine anti-Semites by inducing eye-rolling among many who take part in these discussions whenever hey are hurled.