A War To Remain Proud Of

Iraq After Two Decades

One of my favorite essays is by Christopher Hitchens for The Weekly Standard. Right after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, he wrote:

Let me begin with a simple sentence that, even as I write it, appears less than Swiftian in the modesty of its proposal: “Prison conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved markedly and dramatically since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad.”

A bad day in Iraq since 2003 is much better than a good day under Saddam Hussein. For those who cite 100,000 Iraqis killed during the war, let me remind them of more than a million who died because of a war Saddam Hussein started against Iran.

Historical what ifs are impossible to settle, but it doesn’t take a creative mind to picture the following: In 2011, Iraq has nuclear weapons—as we have solid intelligence that Saddam Hussein’s plan was to resume his program following the collapse of the sanctions regime—and devolves into a civil war akin to what happened in Syria and Yemen. After all, the only Arab republics that survived the Arab Spring were Iraq and Lebanon, both democracies (in Lebanon’s case, at the time), where citizens could express their disenchantments through elections, not revolutions.

Let’s consider a second scenario: Iraq had started two wars against its neighbors throughout his tenure. Can you assure me that he would not go to war against Iran again, or another neighbor?

Hussein was an agent of chaos. He was intent on acquiring nuclear weapons, and he possessed chemical ones—look here, there were chemical weapons. His regime was unstable, he was old, and God only knows what would have happened after his death—or if he had to deal with a revolution in 2011 at 74. The historical what if is unanswerable, but worth considering nonetheless.

The war undeniably improved the life of Iraqis. Iraq’s GDP per capita has increased six-fold since 2003, from around $800 to around $4,800. Healthcare has improved. Civil society has improved. Different ethnicities have more rights. But let me tell you a story I always look back to so you can understand what it is to live with—and without—fear at every moment of your life, something unquantifiable but most important.

In Baghdad, weddings had assigned agents to patrol the street. Their task was to warn if Udai and Qusai—Hussein’s sons—sent their goons. If spotted, the agents would tip off the wedding. Then the bride would either escape or commit suicide because otherwise the goons would take the beautiful bride on her wedding night so the younger Husseins rape her.

I have lived the life of fear in Iran, but never anything like this. I hated my life, and I cannot imagine how a worse life would have been. But that life existed right across the border from me.

Another criticism for the war is that it empowered Iran. It certainly expanded Iran’s geographic footprint—and I’d argue that this is largely because we have an irrational fear of punishing Iran—but there’s the other side of it too. First, as Fouad Ajami argued, correctly in my judgment, the rise of demand for democracy in Iran has a lot to do with democracy in Iraq. I know many Iranians who looked at concerts in Iraq, political fights, and societal liberalization with coveting eyes. The Arabs they perceived as inferior were on a better path, and that was sobering. But also, Iran’s imperialism in the region is a great source of grievance among Iranian revolutionaries, as is the poverty caused in part by the Islamic Republic’s imperialism. The night is young, but if the Islamic Republic collapses in this decade, we can look at the 30th anniversary of the war that had to do with the liberation of two nations.

What was the price of the Iraq War? Financially, it is difficult to tell, but most agree on a trillion dollars—3 percent of our debt. Add 36,000 casualties—4,000 dead and 32,000 wounded severely and superficially—over our 20 year presence in Iraq. In the war’s bloodiest year, the number of Americans killed remained below 1,000. Looking at the wars that have happened before and after Iraq, we fought a cheap—not cost-free by any means—war, and we won it. (Google “Ukraine War casualties” for more on this.)

There’s another criticism of the war, that it led us to be distracted from the threat of China. Read Aaron Friedberg’s Getting China Wrong for more on this. It certainly didn’t help with paying more attention to China, but we didn’t see China coming because we wanted to deceive ourselves about China, not because of Iraq. I don’t buy the distraction argument either.

The real price of the war was in our domestic politics. It became a partisan and polarizing issue. Democrats lied by accusing the administration of George W. Bush of lying about the weapons of mass destruction—nobody, absolutely nobody, has been able to credibly prove that the administration did not believe what it was saying—and they took advantage of early problems for partisan reasons, exaggerated the cost of the war, and refused to give any credit to the Surge when the war began going in the right direction.

And let me ascribe blame to the Bush administration too for it failed to act soon enough to change direction when its strategy was failing. That the initial strategy didn’t go as planned is nothing extraordinary. Very few wars go according to the plan, but the victor is that who adapts quickest and best. The administration took too long to adapt, put too much faith in its military Commanders in Iraq, and ignored intelligence reports warning of the coming disaster.

Nonetheless, Iraq is better off. It is the only Arab democracy, and it is the only democracy in the region aside from Israel. Since 1979, when Hussein assumed power, it has gone the longest without starting a war against another country. We don’t have to worry that it will acquire weapons of mass destruction. And Iraqi brides don’t have to worry that the president’s sons will rape them on their wedding nights.

As for Saddam Hussein, I regret that I don’t believe in afterlife, because it denies me the pleasure of thinking that he is suffering eternal damnation.