Back in May, Iraqis went to the polls to elect a new parliament. The big story at the time was the political transformation of Sunni insurgent leader Moqtada al-Sadr. Once upon a time, Sadr sat atop the Jaysh al Mahdi, an organization that deployed Iranian-supplied, explosively-formed penetrators throughout Iraq with deadly efficiency.
But even as his fighters were killing Americans, Sadr himself stayed well away from danger. My friends who deployed to the Sadr City area in 2007 called him “Mullah Atari” for his propensity to sit in his house and play video games while others in his “Mahdi Army,” did the fighting. He stayed in power for two reasons: he had his father’s name, and his Iranian benefactors found him to be the one they could most easily bend to their will.
Now, he claims to have left the Iranians behind and turned to politics. When the contentious recount of the May parliamentary elections was completed, the Sa’iroun Alliance won 54 of the 329 seats in parliament. That’s obviously not enough to rule outright, but it was more than any other party. In May, I said that made Sadr the “kingmaker.” But that may have been premature.
the vote for speaker will usher in the new government
Granted, it’s only been one day, but there has not yet been a vote for speaker, the first step in forming a new government. With no clear majority, there has been much political wrangling and cajoling as the Sa’iroun Alliance and its two closest rivals – the Fateh Coalition led by former Badr Brigades chief Hadi al-Amiri with 47 seats, and current Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s Nasr Coalition with 42 seats – all try to assemble a coalition to reach a majority.
Sadr and Abadi have partnered, and are working to bring other smaller parties onto a coalition to reach the 165 votes needed for a majority. They initially claimed to have achieved that goal, but a rival coalition of al-Amiri and former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is challenging that assertion, claiming to have picked-off a few members on the margins to form their own coalition.
Where this merry-go-round will stop is anyone’s guess. But I view it as a healthy development. In May, I said I wasn’t convinced by al-Sadr’s conversion from Iranian puppet insurgent to peaceful and independent Iraqi politician. But so far, he’s not given us any evidence that he’s still prone to violence. The question of Iranian influence remains open, of course, but his embrace of parliamentary politics is encouraging.
The Iraq War was still worth the sacrifice
It’s been almost seven years since the last U.S. combat troops left Iraq. The country has endured unspeakable hardships since the U.S. invasion of 2003, but seems to have turned the corner. The U.S. invasion remains a deep dividing line in American politics. I have often argued that the invasion itself was justified and the right thing to do. But there can be little doubt that we failed to plan adequately for the period that followed the toppling of the Saddam Hussein government.
Much of the American resentment traces directly to that period between 2004 and 2005 when no one could figure out whether we were fighting a war, building a new democracy, or America’s proper role in policing post-invasion Iraq. I have long believed that the American public is willing to tolerate combat losses as long as those losses come in the course of dealing an ass-whipping.
What the country will not tolerate is the sight of Americans dying because they were unsure if they were allowed to shoot back or not. I remain convinced that for a good portion of the population (those neither firmly in the pro nor anti-war camps), that period of uncertainty in Iraq formed their opinion of the entire endeavor. This is understandable, but shortsighted.
Iraq is coming around as a democracy. I do not kid myself that any country in the Arab world will ever embrace what we would call “Jeffersonian democracy.” But any government founded on a balance between respect for the rights of the minority and the right of the majority to make the laws, while deriving its “just powers from the consent of the governed,” is a good thing.
Iraqi Civilian deaths plummeting
Since the defeat if the Islamic State in Iraq, civilian deaths are down significantly. While the numbers had been trending downward since the Islamic State-instigated spike in 2014, the most recent numbers are staggeringly encouraging. In 2017, there were an estimated 13,187 civilian deaths in Iraq from violence. So far this year, that number is estimated to be just 2,257.
I hear the objections now; more than 2,000 civilian deaths is still horrific. And the objectors have a point. But when looking at the dramatic reduction in civilian deaths from 2017 to 2018, coupled with the apparent political maturation of two of Iraq’s biggest insurgent leaders, it’s hard not to see the prospects for a stable and democratic Iraqi future.
American Intervention and Iraqi self-Determination are Paving a New Path for Iraq
In April 2007, barely four months into Gen. David Petraeus’s “surge” of troops into Iraq, then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lamented, “This war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything.” Reid was wrong then, and those who now say that Iraq was was a waste of American blood and treasure are are also wrong.
We invaded Iraq for the right reasons, even if on faulty intelligence. Deposing Saddam remains the right choice. We fumbled around in the dark for a bit before settling on a workable strategy. But Iraq now shows every sign of being able to turn the corner and pull itself out of the violent morass in which it has been mired for years. That is due to the efforts of American service members and their allies – both Iraqi and from elsewhere – who fought to defeat those opposed to a free and democratic Iraq.
It is also due in a larger part to the efforts of the Iraqi people to determine their own destiny. So while it is understandable that Americans mourn both our war dead and the innocent Iraqis who have died since 2003, the fact remains that those deaths were not in vain.
The end of the war against radicalism is long from over, but Iraq will one day prove to be the first “reverse domino” to stand up as a democratic pillar in the Middle East. Others will follow.
