The 2003 US-led intervention with an aim to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime has had crucial implications on stability of the Iraqi state and society. Following the invasion by the U.S.-led coalition in 2003, the country fell into a deep sectarian war lasting until 2011. The instability and the lack of government monopoly on the use of force make the country a recruiting ground for terrorists. In the early 2012, Iraq embarked on another war with one the most dangerous and determined terrorist groups–the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also ISIS, ISIL, IS, and Daesh). Cities fell to IS control quickly, and the United States and its allies began providing air support to the Iraqi army to liberate Iraq. Although the last city in Iraq was just freed from IS control, deep sectarian divides, political power struggle, looting, unemployment, and corruption still exist. Democracy in the Iraqi society still has a long way to go (Pranav, et al., 2017).
In March 2003, the United States of America and its allies decided to invade Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, along with many other scholars believe that the 2003 invasion was not to liberate and rebuild Iraq from the grips of Saddam (who had been accused of possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction) but for geopolitical reasons. Iraq’s oil wealth and strategic location of the country were detrimental causes for the invasion of the country (Mearshiemer & Walt, 2003). Regardless of the cause of the invasion, the American led coalition completely misunderstood the nature of the conflict – the demographic divides, and the importance of power distribution within the state. The subsequent rise of ISIS, and the speed of its rise in Iraq can be traced to the invasion of 2003, which is where the consequences of the intervention manifested.
2003 Invasion of Iraq
The geopolitical factors behind the invasion of 2003 have been a constant source of debate, and while they cannot be ignored, the complete misunderstanding of the nature of the conflict in Iraq pre-2003 has had a profound effect on the country today. American exceptionalism since the end of World War II has been based on the spread of the ‘American way of life’ to countries that were under authoritarian rule – and this would be achieved through any means. The invasion of Iraq was a direct reaction to the 9/11 attacks as US policy and security experts were quick to create links between Al-Qaeda and the Saddam regime. Claiming it to be a war against states that sponsor terror activities, and observing it as a religious divide exacerbated the conflict in Iraq. The American led coalition believed that liberation of Iraq from the rule of Saddam would not only democratise the state and solve the conflict in Iraq, but would have a domino effect on the authoritarian states around it. In the present day, the decision to invade Iraq has been seen as a geopolitical move fuelled by islamophobia, and show of power that even the strongest of the Islamic states were no match for the United States and its allies.
The Economist described Saddam as “one of the last of the 20th century’s great dictators, but not the least in terms of egotism, or cruelty, or morbid will to power”, yet there are enough reports that state that Iraq was a safer country under his rule. The prosecution of Kurds was immense, but Shia’s and Sunni’s lived in harmony. Life in Iraq under Saddam’s rule was not safe for a Kurd, Jew or dissident, yet “there was universal health care in Iraq, and universal education. Few people were well off but nobody, as far as I could tell, starved.” (Maume, 2014). Policy makers in the United States of America completely misunderstood the nature of the country, and the sectarian divide. They had expected a lawless state, and although Saddam’s regime was responsible for the death of over 250,000 Iraqi’s; it appeared to be a minute number when viewed from the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, and the subsequent loss of life.
The plan following the war was of America rebuilding Iraq like it had Germany and Japan after World War II. Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) after the war was of the belief that there were no credible Iraqi leaders who could assume power, and decided that the country would have to be directly administered by the CPA for an undefined period. “In order to overhaul the basis on which the [Iraqi] state was run under Saddam, Bremer decreed that the CPA was dissolving the Ba’ath party and disbanding the Iraqi security forces (ISF). But in doing so, the United States was dissolving the sinews of the state that had held the country together. There was now a power vacuum and a free-for-all.” (Sky, 2015). The immediate impact of this was extreme lawlessness – multiple humanitarian reports suggest that not only did the United States led coalition forces cause a massive loss to life and property, the aftermath of the ‘free-for-all’ was a state of anarchy – with increasingly rampant lootings, and other unlawful and anti social activities. Their aim of rebuilding Iraq – in a short period was quite arduous. The immediate impact of this was extreme lawlessness – multiple humanitarian reports suggest that not only did the United States led coalition forces cause a massive loss to life and property, they partook in committing war crimes; the aftermath of the ‘free-for-all’ was a state of anarchy – with increasingly rampant lootings, and other unlawful and anti-social activities. In their attempt to spread the ‘American way of life’ the coalition forces had managed to create the lawless state that policy makers in Washington had described existed under Saddam’s rule in Iraq.
The coalition forces also completely disregarded the sectarian divide that existed in Iraq. In terms of Islamic regimes, Iraq was a unique example. It is one of the only two countries with a Shia majority (the other being Iran), but historically has been predominantly ruled by the Sunni’s. The Kurds, another faction of Islam, are also in vast numbers in the state. While there was a major persecution of the Kurds in Iraq under Saddam, his rule had the unique tendency of harmony between the Sunni and Shia populations. It was only after the American invasion that sectarian divide increased within the state. During World War I, Britain had led Sharif Hussein of Mecca into believing that he would be granted an Arab kingdom in exchange for an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire – who had sided with the Germans. However, in the Sykes-Picot treaty – secretly signed between Britain and France – the Ottoman territory would be split between the two of them. The British introduced a system of direct rule, with districts run by British political officers. The construction of the modern state of Iraq can be traced back to 1919, when after the Treaty of Versailles, under the mandate system Britain combined the regions of Basra, Baghdad and later Mosul on historical antecedents. A constitutional monarch system was introduced – with a prime minister as head of the government and a senate appointed by the king. There was an attempt to indirectly rule Iraq through administrative elites who had served under the Ottomans, the officers who had joined Sharif Hussein in the Arab Revolt, and land owning notables. These people were almost exclusively Sunni Arabs – in a Shia dominated country (Sky, 2015). The CPA, after the fall of Saddam made active attempts to not make the mistakes the British made when rebuilding Iraq; yet they thoroughly misunderstood the demographics, and made the mistake of putting all the power in the hands of the Sunni’s (with Kurdish autonomy) instead of equitable distribution of power. The favourable approach to the Kurds, and support of Sunni rule has caused resentment in the Shia population of the country, and conflict between the three sects saw a rampant rise post the American invasion – only to dissipate to some extent recently, when they had to unite to fight against ISIS.
Along with this profound misunderstanding of the conflict in Iraq, international relations scholars such as Mearsheimer opine that invasion was driven by oil interests. The assumption that Iraq was a failed state in the middle east before 2003 was created by the American administration to satiate their geopolitical aspirations. The oil wealth of Iraq has been cited as the main reason for the intervention led by the Bush administration, as approximately 9.5% of the world’s oil reserves and 5% of proven natural gas reserves are in Iraq (Pranav, 2017). A centralized structure was implemented after US intervention in 2003, where the natural resources are controlled by the government through the Ministry of Oil which own, produces, transports, sells and accounts for all the oil produced and used domestically. According to a report in the Iraqi Extractive Industries Transparency initiative “Article 111 in the Iraqi Constitution sets the legal foundation for the development of the sector, noting that ‘oil and gas are owned by all the people of Iraq in all the regions and governorates.’ Article 112, calls for a balanced distribution of oil revenues throughout the country to be regulated by specific law. In the absence of said law, Article 110 gives the Federal Government exclusive authority to determine foreign sovereign economic and trade policy, in addition to “regulating commercial policy across regional and governorate boundaries within Iraq.” (Berland, 2017). In the absence of a law as prescribed by Article 112 of the Constitution to determine a national energy strategy, a series of short term agreements were made between 2009 and November 2014 to govern the relationship between the Federal Government and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in terms of oil and gas production.” (Berland, 2017). The conflict that emerged due to non-equitable sharing of resources between governorates were created out of the misunderstanding of the demographic situation in Iraq. The lack of revenue sharing agreements in the 2003 constitution has further led to increasing conflict due to inequality within the country (Pranav, 2017).
The impact of the international intervention in 2003 has had far reaching consequences – most of which after gestating over a period of time have rapidly come to the fore. Among the population there is widespread disillusionment with party politics – with parties seen as corrupt, self-serving, and a part of a political sphere that is dominated by religious entities. Ranking 166 out of 167 on the global corruption index, the current situation can be traced back to Saddam’s regime (Saleh, 2014). Although corruption was not an inherent characteristic of Saddam’s Iraq until after the UN sanctions imposed on the country after its loss in the invasion and subsequent war in Kuwait. With the tight economic siege that kept the oil revenues out of reach of the elite – Iraqi society suffered; public servants were paid cursory values for the work they could not quit, and a black market was installed – which soon came to be controlled by the government. By 2003, the issue of corruption gained an even greater growing space with the US’ invasion that created a lawless state. With the war averting attention from the issue and imposing a great barrier on monitoring, the situation escalated and is sustained now by custom, a vested interest for the elite, and a structured system. Corruption has increased political apathy over the course of time in Iraq. There is usually limited or no representation of the minorities, and despite being represented in Parliament, will be overruled by the Sunni majority parties on most pressing issues. Adoption of American style patronage (carried forward from the 2003 constitution) has allowed the government to control Iraqi political institutions from within, resulting in, for instance, a Supreme Court that negates the constitutional mandate. Excessive politicisation at the national level has effectively compromised the role of the judiciary as an independent check on the other branches of government and has been an accomplice to the centralisation of power by Prime Minister Maliki through a series of controversial rulings that have empowered the executive and restrained (and in some cases removed) his political rivals. On close inspection of the situation it is quite clear that the seeds of the deluge were sown in the hasty nature of the CPA’s attempt to set up a new constitution and withdraw from Iraq. In the process of international intervention to solve the conflict in Iraq, and the complete misunderstanding of the nature of the conflict, not only failed to resolve it, but exacerbated the problems that had created the conflicts in the first place.
2011 and the Rise of Jihadist Fundamentalism
The hasty withdrawal of the coalition forces, and the general misunderstanding of Iraq that had surround the invasion provided for the perfect environment for the rise of Islamic fundamentalists. Over the course of the American led intervention, established political systems and military apparatus were broken down which were utilised by the fundamentalist groups. The power vacuum that appeared at the end of the withdrawal of the of the coalition forces helped ISIS to emerge as the power brokers and holders in the country. The rapid rise of ISIS in Iraq can be traced back to the mistakes made by the coalition forces in their attempt to rebuild the Iraqi state post 2003. War hardened generals and secret service operatives that had served under Saddam were being actively recruited by the ISIS leadership between 2011 and 2014. These men, nearly all of whom had spent time imprisoned by the US military at Camp Bucca, came to make up about one third of ISIS’ top 25 commanders – thus provided military expertise to a jihadist organisation that was on its way to declaring itself a caliphate. As mentioned earlier – the dissolution of the Iraqi Security Forces by the CPA in their process of ‘rebuilding’ Iraq created this menace. A proper program of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration was not carried out for these well trained military personnel, who saw the rise of ISIS as a way to return to their pre-invasion military life. This resulted in fundamentalist forces being able to mobilise and capture huge swathes of territory efficiently through meticulous military planning, which the inept Iraqi Security forces were unable to keep up with.
Iraq’s systematic problems were a by-product of the international intervention, culminating a weak military state that almost succumbed to a terror outfit in 2015. Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s Fatwa provided the ISF with enough backing to launch a full frontal assault against ISIS, yet it would not have been the case if a proper security establishment had been set up before the withdrawal of the coalition forces. While the fatwa did mobilise about 80,000 men under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilisation Units – a number of these are backed with Iranian money – which is now trying to exert its influence on Iraq. The leaders of these factions have been allies with Iran since the Iran-Iraq war, and have expressed desires to mobilise politically (Knights, 2016). Many experts have expressed concerns over the growing influence of Iran on the Southern Eastern Iraqi borders; the fear is that the Iranian intervention will only deepen the sectarian strife that already exists in Iraq, and weaken the authority of the central government in areas the border Iran. Other than the Iranian problem concerning the PMUs, there is an issue of demobilising the units once the fight against ISIS is over. The Iraqi government has yet to decide how to disarm, demobilise, and reintegrate the fighters into the society, and whether they should be absorbed into the ISF. The lack of a proper plan would further create a power vacuum with the fall of ISIS – and to claim that one or multiple of the PMU’s will try to capture power would not be far fetched as the Iraqi state is systematically incapable of filling the power vacuum.
The rise of the jihadist fundamentalist group in the country was also supported by its vast oil resources and its improper distribution within the state. ISIS funded its activities by selling oil from the Kirkuk oil fields. In this regard – the distrust of Iraqi leadership by the CPA, and inability to reach oil revenue sharing agreements made jihadist take over of the oil fields far easier. There has been immense sectarian divide between the Kurds and the Shia’s in the country. Although the Kurds were favoured by the CPA, no agreement of oil revenue distribution was achieved making the Kirkuk oil fields highly contested. The military generals recruited by ISIS saw this as an opportunity and took control – creating a heavy stream of revenue. What is essential to note here is that neighbouring countries have facilitated this scenario. Turkey, which supported the US led invasion has been accused of purchasing oil from ISIS – giving the organisation between USD 1million to 1.5 million a day as operational revenue (Nakhle, 2016).
The rapid rise of ISIS and the quick fall of Iraqi cities such as Mosul and Kirkuk to ISIS control prompted another international intervention in the country in 2013. To avoid the mistakes made in 2003 and the war in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies refrained from entering the war directly; instead the intervention of 2013 involved economic sanctions against ISIS oil, and military aid to the different paramilitia fighting against ISIS. The American favourability towards the Kurds was visible again as the amount of aid provided to the Kurdish pashmerga was the highest given as compared to any other paramilitary organisation. This has infact increased sectarian conflict within the country. The Kurds, now equipped with American weapons, have called for a referendum for complete independence. Although the decision to not get directly get involved might have been to avoid the costs of intervention, there was again a major misunderstanding of the nature of the conflict. The war against ISIS required a form of direct action instead of indirect action. To heavily arm the militias, without a form of centralised military control has created a situation where a power vacuum with the fall of ISIS is imminent.
As observed in Afghanistan and Iraq – international intervention is usually stuck in a Sisyphean cycle of endless conflict. Rational international relations theories would point that a state would learn from its mistakes to avoid similar setbacks. While the defeat of Saddam came with the high price of creation of ISIS, it can not be assumed that similar problems will not arise again. US interventionist policy in 3 phases supported the rise of ISIS:
a) the original decision to invade Iraq in 2003, with all the mismanagement of the occupation that followed
b) the US political disengagement from and military drawdown in Iraq in 2010–11
c) the decision in late 2013–early 2014 not to strangle ISIS in its cradle by taking military action before it conquered much of western Iraq and swooped down upon Mosul
For each of these phases US policy makes believe that the best course of action was taken, yet we find similar instances post every intervention. Although there has a steep learning curve from the 2003 invasion in terms of direct involvement – a similar situation is to arise post the defeat of ISIS. The coalition forces have refrained from directly entering the conflict leaving the ground action to the Iraqi Security forces and tribal par-militia such as the Kurdish Pashmerga, while simultaneously providing them with weapons and training. However, the weak federal government that the CPA created in 2006, is unable to handle the power of these militia’s thus rendering a power vacuum with no centralised control when ISIS finally falls. While the common goal of defeating ISIS units each of these bodies, vested interests of being the most power when it falls must be taken into account. Policy researches have found that the counterfactuals explored while criticising the US invasion and subsequent rise of ISIS are less-clear cut than they might initially appear, either because different policies would have produced only moderately better results, or because different policies would have introduced other costs and difficulties that somewhat cloud the ultimate cost-benefit analysis. We find that not invading Iraq in 2003 would have left the United States saddled with the costs of continuing to contain the country, where as striking ISIS militarily in late 2013 or early 2014 might have wakened that organisation militarily while exacerbating the political conditions that were fuelling its rise. Intervening more heavily in Iraqi politics in 2010 in order to bring about a less sectarian government than that which ultimately emerged, and leaving a stay-behind force in Iraq after 2011, represent a fairly compelling counterfactual in the sense that such policies could have had numerous constructive effects. But even here, choosing a different path from the one actually taken would have meant courting non-trivial costs, liabilities, uncertainties and limitations (Brands & Feaver, 2017).
International intervention in Iraq not only failed to solve the conflict of the country but also exacerbated other internal problems of security, sectarianism and corruption. The end product of the 2003 intervention has been a state on the brink of a collapse to an islamist fundamentalist organisation. While some scholars and policy maker would argue that the intervention in 2003 was essential, there is a general consensus that it could have been planned better – by placing more focus on the demographic and cultural divides that plague the country. Former US military advisor Lt. Col. David Kilcullen summarised the how badly the United States and its allies had misunderstood the nature of the conflict in Iraq by calling it as a big a blunder as the invasion of Russia by Hitler in the winter of 1941 (Kilcullen, 2016).