All indications are that the biggest fights of the war in Iraq are done. To be sure, there will be isolated fights and incidents as some semblance of order is restored, but major bombing campaigns — including carpetbombing and “shock and awe” — have ceased to be necessary.
“I would anticipate that the major combat engagements are over,” Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters at a Pentagon briefing yesterday afternoon.
No matter what you thought of the war and the way in which it was executed, this is undoubtedly welcome news. Fewer bombing campaigns means fewer U.S. troops in high-risk situations, fewer civilian deaths, and more stability to a war-torn nation.
At the risk of sounding callous, however, now comes the hard part. The last month has seen intense fighting and tragic casualties, but in a match up of our military vs. Iraq’s, we were going to win and they were going to lose. It’s as simple as that.
Rebuilding Iraq, creating stable institutions, maintaining law and order, and delivering humanitarian aid will be a daunting challenge. Even harder will be working to prevent competing Iraqi ethnic and religious groups from destroying one another and sending the country into chaos once the war is truly done.
We shouldn’t worry, Bush says. The United States won’t let Iraq down. In a message broadcasted directly to the Iraqi people on Thursday, Bush said the country’s citizens will soon be a “free people.”
“You will be free to build a better life, instead of building more palaces for Saddam and his sons, free to pursue economic prosperity without the hardship of economic sanctions, free to travel and speak your mind, free to join in the political affairs of Iraq,” Bush said.
All of this sounds great and I sincerely hope it happens. I agree with Bush that the people of Iraq have suffered greatly under the reign of brutal tyrant. No matter how skeptical I’ve been about the wisdom of this war, I’d be thrilled to see Iraq thrive as a free democracy.
There’s only one problem. Bush made similar promises the last time the U.S. brought “regime change” to a Middle East foe. Like the war in Afghanistan, the president made all kinds of promises about aid, rebuilding, and a better life for a suffering people. The trouble is, Bush did not, or at least has not, kept those promises.
As Salon’s Jake Tapper reported last week, the White House has failed to deliver the resources necessary to keep Afghanistan from completely falling apart. The last time the country was this chaotic, the Taliban swept in and took over. If we’re not careful, it could happen again.
As Tapper noted, Bush pledged $3.3 billion in assistance for Afghanistan in December. A month later, Bush submitted his 2003 budget to Congress and included literally no money for the country. Not one penny. (Embarrassed, congressional Republicans quickly penciled in $295 million for Afghanistan, though everyone realized that was nothing compared to what the country actually needed.)
Members of Congress from both parties are worried that the Bush administration is dropping the ball on Afghanistan and running the risk of allowing armed militias to take over the country.
Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), one of the Democrats’ strongest voices on foreign policy, told Tapper that he continues to pressure the White House to pay more attention to the last country we “liberated,” but keeps getting blown off. “We were told, ‘We don’t need any more [resources] in Afghanistan,'” Biden said in February.
“I think they have already given up the ghost in Afghanistan,” Biden said of the administration. “They’ve basically turned it over to the warlords.”
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) believes most of Afghanistan, at least the parts outside of Kabul, is already under the control of warlords.
“Everyone even remotely familiar with Afghanistan knows that Karzai’s government controls essentially Kabul and not much else,” Hagel said. “[I] have strongly, strongly recommended that the United States put more effort and more manpower in there, because it’s going to be required. There’s no other way to do this.”
Hagel added, “Afghanistan is a very important country because it represents an effort of our will and our word to other nations in a very dangerous part of the world…. We can’t fail in Afghanistan. We have to stay focused on it. You know, things don’t automatically get better in life. Vacuums will be filled. And usually not with good things.”
Bolstering the Salon article was a report in the Washington Post yesterday about how Afghanistan is still “struggling to establish the basics of a working government.”
“The military is splintered by factionalism, the police force is untrained, the justice system is dominated by religious conservatives who have more in common with the Taliban than with Karzai, and tax collection is largely ineffective,” the Post explained.
I’d feel more confident about Bush’s promises for the future of Iraq if he had a better track record on this issue.