Should the US Military Come Home?

A few weeks ago I watched former US ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker on tv weighing in with the long list of politicians and senior ex-military officers who have publicly expressed their opposition to what is often regarded as the "sudden" or "precipitous" withdrawal of US troops earlier from Iraq and now Afghanistan. Everyone now claims to have known clearly in advance that things would turn out exactly as they recently have - aka "I told you so!" 

Was the collapse of Iraq and now Afghanistan inevitable? If that is the case, how much more resources in men and material will the US taxpayers of both political parties be prepared to invest in these foreign lands? For how much longer? Five more years, or perhaps fifty? The answers are far from obvious even for those who claim to be far more knowledgeable than the average man. 

In short, are there any prospects of US troops ever coming home even if, as has now happened, President Barack Obama has succumbed to sustained pressure and suspended indefinitely the complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The US at the same time is beefing up its involvement in the fight against ISIL in the large swathe of territory spanning northern Iraq and Syria. 

IRAQ

In the case of Iraq, opponents of President Obama's policy direction have yet to explain what they mean when they complain that the US administration "should have" bargained "much harder" to be allowed to retain a sizable fighting force in Iraq. Almost nobody points an accusing finger at the now discredited former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who resolutely refused to grant the terms that the US rightly or wrongly demanded for such a force. Based on American concept of exceptionalism, all known hosts of US forces overseas have in the past granted such terms covering legal and other issues. The same critics would be the same to cry foul and "surrender" if indeed the US bent over backwards and accepted less liberal terms whilst continuing to expend billions of dollars, and the blood of its youth to protect an ungrateful Iraqi nation. It was clearly a no-win situation. 

Everyone who had the interest of the long-suffering Iraqi at heart was hoping that the corrupt political class, having stolen enough, would get their act together, bridge the wide Sunni-Shia divide, and save their own nation. Al-Maliki and company adamantly refused to do that. Instead of leaving them to their own devices, diplomats from all over rallied to save a situation that is essentially beyond redemption and railroaded the restive and much maligned Kurds in the north into an unsustainable arrangement that is unravelling by the day. If the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Czechoslovakia could partition thereby presenting a better promise for good neighbourliness, then the same privileges should be extended to the Iraqi factions. These budding nation states are more likely to cherish their freedom dearly and hence show more patriotic keenness to fight in its defence. That is exactly what the Kurds are doing. On the other hand, the Sunni of the west of Iraq will not be found dead fighting to defend the Shia of Basra and Karbala. And vice versa. In the unlikely event that the Shia of Iraq want to submit to Iranian rule, they should be free to do so if that will bring that region peace.  

AFGHANISTAN - BOMBING OF MSF HOSPITAL

And now the attention has shifted even if briefly to Afghanistan, especially with the shameful fall of Kunduz to the Taliban. Fareed Zakaria on his CNN programme Global Public Square (GPS) and also in his recent article in The Washington Post has pointed accusing fingers at nuclear armed Pakistan, known to hobnob routinely with the Taliban. The truth of the matter is that the security agencies of both Pakistan and Afghanistan have been gravely compromised. This much I shared over a year ago with pundits in Foreign Affairs Journal who had imagined that the current situation would arise not now but sometime in the remote future. I am very surprised that no one has come public with the simple notion that the targeting co-ordinates that led to the bombing of the hospital of Medecins Sans Frontieres in Kunduz must have been deliberately fed the US Air Force by rogue Taliban elements embedded within the Afghan military. I came to that conclusion the very day that I learnt of the event. Yes, in the fog of war, the US forces accepted the co-ordinates in good faith, without cross checking them. You are supposed to trust your allies. Right? Wrong! Not in Pakistan, Iraq or Afghanistan. 

With the announced indefinite suspension of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, with an implied potential for a new build-up, the hawks have clearly won the argument this time around. Meanwhile the military contractors are smiling all the way to the bank.