Finally, after seven years, over a trillion dollars spent, thousands of lives lost, international opprobrium earned, a volatile situation created, a dictator defeated, world stability threatened and a nation brought to the brink, US president Barack Obama has called an end to the war in Iraq. Started by his predecessor George W Bush, Obama had promised an end to this controversial war in his
campaign for the presidency.
However welcome the news may seem — not least to the
soldiers in Iraq and their families as well as the people of Iraq themselves — the task is unfinished. The US cannot just bid goodbye and go as if nothing has changed. Having dismantled all systems in Iraq and disrupted normal life, the invading countries — notably Britain and the US —also have some responsibility to help the local government to put it all back together so that the Iraqi people can get on the path to normal life.
Obama has stated that the US’s domestic problems are his priority and there can be no argument with that. But an unstable Iraq, with daily violence and the entry of terrorist forces — which ironically were absent under Saddam Hussein — can easily become a flashpoint. Some attempts have been made to allow Iraq to take the first steps towards democracy but this is difficult when it is a command performance under the shadow of the gun.
Perhaps the task has to be handed over to the UN so that Iraq can put the war behind it and start coping with its losses.
The US withdrawal from Iraq is also a sign that Afghanistan will be next. Here the problem is equally, if not more, dire. The Taliban and al Qaeda are both based in Afghanistan and Pakistan — and were never part of Iraq. For us in India, an Afghanistan left to fend for itself will be a disaster. Here also attempts to establish a democracy of sorts have been made but the government in Kabul does not control vast swathes of the country which are still in the hands of warlords or the Taliban.
Obama has kept his promise to end the war and must be commended for that. But as we know from experience, the bigger task starts now — rebuilding and restoring Iraq to the polity of nations. If we do not do that, then we are all under threat.
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