Foreign military intervention has long-lasting consequences on a region which can affect a country socially, economically, and politically for years following a conflict. In a more recent example, we see how prevalent the 2003 American invasion of Iraq has affected both Iraq and Syria nearly fifteen years following the initial invasion of Iraq. This research paper will argue that America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq helped lead to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as American military intervention and foreign policy destabilized Iraq with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party, the dissolving of the Iraqi military, increased the religious divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and created a power vacuum with in 2011 following the removal of US forces. The operation would fall apart and turn into the long drawn out war as a result of there not being enough of a plan to stabilize the region once the dictatorship had been eliminated. What the United States and their allies did not understand was that they would be attempting to manipulate both a culture and ideology, something that cannot be done through military force. Once Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled, the conflict would shift from traditional warfare to a war against insurgents and a certain ideology and culture. It is clear that the destabilization of Iraq from foreign military intervention from both US and coalition forces coupled with neighbouring Syria engaged in a civil war provided a fertile environment for ISIS to take hold and make large territorial gains.
On March 20th, 2003, the United States’ ‘War on Terror’ would begin following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. With the belief that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction and was working with Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden in orchestrating the attacks on the World Trade Centre that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. “The Bush administration cohorts successfully followed the lead of the president to convince American people and the international community that Saddam Hussein was really a grave danger to world peace and security” (Nuruzzaman, 2006). The United States would invade Iraq in what is known as ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’. By May 1st of 2003, Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist government had been overthrown and the Iraqi army of hundreds of thousands armed men would be dissolved without disarmament procedures as organized by American Paul Bremer. This was seen as a liberating victory by President George W. Bush as Saddam Hussein’s violent dictatorship which had been persecuting the Kurdish and Shi’a populations has been toppled. This would be known as the ‘De-Ba’athification’, a US-led policy from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) which removed all members of the public sector in the Ba’ath Party and barred them from future employment roles in the public sector. This policy would later be described by Paul Rich as “the disastrous de-Baathification policy pursued under Paul Bremer after May 2003 whereby all former Baathist civil servants lost their jobs and some 400,000 former members of the Iraq army were laid off” (Rich, 2016). This US-led policy would be the start of the destabilization which would quickly spread across the country, and eventually the region. A transitional government would be put in place following the removal of Saddam which would then be replaced by the Iraqi Interim Government. It would later become evident that the policy implemented by the US would only further exacerbate the conflict in years to come. With hundreds of thousands former Iraqi Army members out of work and a government who was only in place due to Western intervention, Iraq would fall further into conflict and chaos. Now that we have examined the decisions made by US policy makers which led to the removal of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, we can analyze the affect that power vacuum left by US forces had on Iraq upon their removal in 2011.
After eight years of war between the American-led coalition and opposition forces, the United States would significantly reduce their troop numbers and military influence in the region with a full withdrawal in 2011. The lack of foreign military presence coupled with a largely ineffective and unsupported Iraqi government would further destabilize the country. Following the removal of American forces in the region, the situation throughout Iraq would spread into other unstable or weak regions in the Middle East, mainly Syria which had been engaged in a conflict of its own in 2011. With a vast area in the war-torn Middle East left absent of Western military forces, most importantly the United States, these regions would fall prey to groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. This phenomenon is known as a power vacuum, with a major power no longer being in Iraq there was a power void. What this provided was an opportunity for radical insurgent groups to fill that void. Though ISIS and other insurgents groups were largely outmanned and outgunned, the US forces would find them very difficult to counter even with the modern technologies of the military today. Mobility plays a major role for these insurgent groups, they have no drawn out borders making them difficult to effectively engage in combat (Jeenah, 2015). As Iraq continued to fall further into the hands of groups like ISIS, external circumstances in neighbouring countries would once again provide them with an opportunity to spread throughout the region with little resistance.
In 2011, the Syrian Civil war broke out between Bashar Al-Assad and rebel forces. This would quickly turn into an international conflict with many countries involved in a coalition and which either backed Assad government forces or rebel forces. During the same year, American forces in Iraq would be in the process of their full withdrawal from Iraq leaving the border between the two countries largely absent of security forces. With neighbouring Syria deep in a complicated civil war with many different state actors and rebel groups, borders between the neighbouring countries of Iraq and Syria became weakened and largely unprotected. The lack of border along with the no protection from the US or coalition forces would allow terrorist groups like ISIS to move fighters and resources freely throughout the region. “the immediate aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, Washington failed to establish security before attempting transformation, thereby allowing the insurgency to reach a point of psychological “set” that was immensely difficult to reverse fairly quickly.” (Monshipouri, 2017). ISIS benefited greatly from the liquidity of their forces not only for combat procedures but also in seizing the territory which had been left unguarded by the coalition forces. Allowing ISIS to spread throughout both Iraq and Syria can be seen as a result of the power vacuum created from the withdrawal of US forces, if the US administration had decided to intervene in Syria earlier in the civil war they could have limited or even stopped the spread of ISIS “dismantling the Syrian army would be far too problematic in the face of the threat posed by ISIS” (Monshipouri, 2017). As outlined earlier in the essay, foreign military intervention carries with it social, political, and economic affects following the aftermath. US policy which was implemented with political goals in mind to remove Saddam Hussein due to his oppressive actions towards the Shi’a population and Kurdish minority would only be met with similar results. In terms of social and religious affects, the new government put in place by the Americans would lead to more sectarian violence in Iraq.
Prior to the US invasion in 2003, there was already a religious divide between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims in Iraq. This had only been exacerbated by Saddam Hussein’s oppressive policies over the decades and would continue even once Saddam Hussein and his government had been removed. Following the Iraqi transitional government was Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who was chosen by the Americans, after years of Iraq being lead by Sunni leaders that have repressed the Shi’as and Kurdish people. Maliki was the first Shi’a leader of Iraq in but he would only reverse the sectarian conflict within Iraq between the Sunni and Shi’a. “Maliki’s actions have led to a rise in both Kurdish and Sunni nationalisms, which has resulted in civil war and the effective failure of the Iraqi state.” (O’Driscoll, 2017). Once he had state power at his disposal, Maliki would now suppress Sunni political activism and order arrests of Sunni provincial leaders (Stansfield, 2016). Not only did the US led political policy involving Prime Minister Maliki lead to the current sectarian religious violence facing Iraq, but also their failure to understand the sectarian differences as highlighted by Katagiri “The United States made a series of strategic errors in terms of ‘sectarian balancing, creating institutions but limiting their authority, playing off the center against the periphery, playing off political parties against tribes, and allowing the Iraqis to remilitarize.” (Katagiri, 2015). Here we see how America’s political influence and policy implementation in Iraq is interconnected and intertwined and carries direct influence on social and religious aspects of the lives of Iraqi citizens. As what was originally planned to be short conflict with a swift American victory continued to be drawn out, the perception of America and the West would deteriorate. The US policy and foreign military intervention which would lead to a foundation for ISIS has been outlined, now the aspects of radicalization and recruitment to ISIS will be explored and connected to decisions made by American policy makers like Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority.
The initial 2003 invasion would continue on for several years, this would eventually lead to the United States and coalition forces being viewed as an occupying force rather than liberators which some argued they had set out to do. The concept of winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Iraqi people would have been an integral aspect in ensuring that post-invasion and post-war Iraq would be followed by a functioning democratized society with stronger relations with the United States and the West. This simply did not happen, while some minority groups were in support of the United States involvement in the region such as the Kurdish minority, many Iraqis were not in support. With there already being much resentment of the US occupation from the locals along with the poverty, unemployment, and lack of opportunity, some would turn to radical insurgent groups such as ISIS “Without severe poverty, damaged infrastructure, and a failing governmental system, ISIS would not be as powerful as they are today (Volk, 2013)”. Early in the war, it was revealed that the American Abu Ghraib prison guards were committing heinous crimes towards Iraqi prisoners. The torturing and abuse of inmates would be used as political fuel and as a recruitment tool for anti-coalition groups and insurgent groups. Events like the Abu Ghraib incident and ongoing civilian casualty rate as a result of drone strikes, raids and aerial bombings would continue to reduce the support of the foreign forces being present in Iraq “the sheer severity of the civilian casualties and mortality rate as a result of the ongoing war in Iraq. This grim aspect of the war went largely unnoticed during the early years of the conflict and did not become available to the public until a few years had passed. This issue has become one of the most widespread problems involved with conflicts in Middle Eastern regions experiencing bombings. (Burkle and Garfield, 2013). Actions such as this would help both the recruitment and radicalization of not only locals to join these insurgent groups, but we would see later that the Islamic States’ use of propaganda on the internet was one of their largest recruitment tools. “ISIS and other international terrorist organizations rely on the Internet to disseminate their extremist rhetoric and to recruit people to their cause” (Greenberg, 2016). These tools of recruitment would work so well that they were able to draw supporters and fighters from all over the world, including the United States and Canada. With a lack of support and failure to ‘win the hearts and minds’, the United States was painted as imperialists who were only involved in the region for economic gain due to their oil-dependent economy. As highlighted earlier in the essay during the ‘De-Ba’athification’ process was the dissolving of the Iraqi Army when Saddam Hussein was overthrown. It is estimated that several hundred thousand Iraqis who served in the Iraqi Army left out of work and still armed during the implementation of this US-led policy. With attitude towards the US and coalition forced absent from many ex-military members, it is believed that many of these militarily trained fighting aged men would end up joining these insurgents groups. This aspect of the implementation from the Coalition Provisional Authority is viewed by many as one of the major blunders of this war.
After exploring both US policy and US military action we find that the Bush Administration made several political and tactical errors following the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s government. Foreign military intervention has long-lasting influences on a region, often in a negative form which has been made clear following the Iraq war. The US invasion of Iraq would weaken the country socially, economically, and politically where US forces would then leave without an effective exit strategy. Iraq was left with a power vacuum and without the resources and tools needed in order to rebuild as a nation. Policy known as the ‘de-Ba’athification’ would leave hundreds of thousands of militarily trained, armed, and unemployed citizens with a negative perception of the US occupation of Iraq. Not only would this US policy create a potential threat, but the sectarian conflict would increase as the American imposed Prime Minister Maliki would only further the religious divide between Sunni and Shi’a groups. The many policy issues along with the eventual removal of US forces would lead to destabilized environment where radical insurgent groups such as ISIS were able to take hold and seize large cities across Iraq and move into neighbouring Syria. The rise of ISIS and their quick success in sweeping across the region can be traced all the way back to ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ of March 20th, 2003.