Get Ready for Another Iraq War

Seth Moulton, The Washington Post 

23 June 2016

Iraqi soldiers patrol the streets of Saqlawiyah, northwest of Fallujah, on June 8, during an operation to regain territory from the Islamic State. (Ahmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

Losing a friend in war is always hard. Losing a friend to a battle we already fought and won is worse.

That’s how my close friend Lt. Col. Ehab Hashem Moshen was killed recently by the Islamic State near Fallujah — refighting a battle in Iraq that the Marine Corps fought a decade ago. The Marines won that fight. The problem is that the Obama administration didn’t follow through on a political plan to maintain the peace.

In April, I visited some of the almost 5,000 troops that President Obama has put back in Iraq, and I witnessed a recurring theme: We have a military plan to defeat the Islamic State — and, as initial gains in Fallujah this week demonstrate, it’s going well in many respects — but we have yet to articulate a political plan to ensure Iraq’s long-term stability.

Sometimes it’s impossible to tell whether it’s 2007 or 2016. The battle plans I hear from our commanders in Iraq today are the same ones I heard at the beginning of the surge, down to the same cities and tribal alliances. My question is: How will this time be different? The silence is deafening.

Carl von Clausewitz taught us nearly 200 years ago that “War is a mere continuation of politics by other means.” We have to have a political endgame, or the sacrifices our troops continue to make will be in vain. It’s not the military’s job to develop that political plan — that’s where the administration comes in — but it’s painfully clear there isn’t one. 

Without a long-term political strategy, we can expect to send young Americans back to Iraq every time Iraqi politics fall apart, a new terrorist group sweeps in and we find ourselves required to clean up the mess.

Let’s not forget that, fundamentally, the crisis in Iraq today is political. When the Islamic State overran much of the country, it didn’t just defeat the Iraqi army; the soldiers of the Iraqi army put their weapons down and went home because they had lost faith in then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarian government. Only if we can help bring lasting change to Iraqi politics will Iraq be able to defend itself without our help.

As a four-tour Marine veteran of Iraq myself, I share the president’s deeply held wish that our continued involvement were not necessary. It would be great if we could simply hand the ball to the Iraqis and wish them well. But hope is not a strategy, and the past five years have proved that that approach doesn’t work.

Some will say that meddling in foreign politics often makes things worse, and I’ll be the first to say that it’s hard to do well. But we made tremendous political progress in Iraq during the surge. Under the strong leadership of then-Ambassador Ryan Crocker, we kept a lid on sectarianism, curtailed Iranian influence and led reconciliation among many disgruntled tribesmen. Yes, the leverage of 100,000 U.S. troops helped, but Crocker’s close coordination with his military counterpart, Gen. David Petraeus, was what mattered most; there are far more elements of U.S. power and influence we can bring to the table than boots on the ground.

More important, the alternative to robust political mentoring in Iraq is sending young Americans back again and again. Fixing Iraqi politics is difficult, but I’d much prefer having a heavy, long-term diplomatic presence than losing more lives refighting battles we already won.

by

by