Obama’s mad dash from Iraq left US without leverage in Syria

To update Tallyrand, our 2011 shag-out-of-town from Iraq was worse than a crime, it was a mistake—a mistake we will continue to pay for in Syria and the rest of the Middle East.

It is not as big a mistake as Harry S. Truman’s 1948-49 ushering in of Communist rule in China, setting up America for tragic wars in Korea and Vietnam, but it could be, we just do not know yet. So much of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy decisions are driven by spite and the already written scripts for his reelection campaign commercials—not the geopolitical interests of the United States or her ally Iraq. Now we are left standing on a hilltop powerlessly watching a train wreck.

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Recall with me now that in 2010-2011, our troops had slid neatly into an advisory role and with the exception of random acts of warlike vandalism, the insurgency was no longer calling the tune in Iraq. As troop rotations continued, both the Iraqis and the Army expected to continue to maintain anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 troops as an ongoing training garrison on at least six permanent bases, including the Victory Base Complex next to Baghdad, Camp Basra in the south and Camp Al-Asad in Anbar province. Imagine now with me, how different our leverage with Syria would be if we were still operating a base with troops, aircraft and materiel in Anbar on the Syrian border. In a practical sense, the first effect of our continued presence in Iraq would be our ability to blockade the land and air supply bridge Iran takes across and over Iraq to resupply the Assad regime. Blocked out of Iraq, the Iranians would have to fly over Turkish or Saudi airspace, which is not likely. The second effect would be what they call in law enforcement: officer presense. Just our being next store means that the Syrian regime has to include our troops in their calcuations. This is not a small thing, since the reputation of our troops and their fighting power is the highest in the world after our combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Everyone knows we were not chased out of Iraq or Afghanistan, our leaders simply wanted to spend the money on their friends instead. No Army in the world wants to face the veterans of Fallujah. When the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in May 2011 in the city of Deraa, our troops in Iraq were still functioning as they had for the previous years and the serious dismantling, later abandonment, of our infrastructure had not yet begun. Still later that summer, as the US Forces-Iraq military headquarters moved from Camp Victory to Al-Asad itself, there was still a way to maintain a credible posture, even as the withdrawal picked up pace. In fact, there was an opportunity to create a separate command on Syria Watch in Anbar without disrupting the shag-out-of-town going on everywhere else in the country. Instead nothing was done. After all, President Barack Obama promised to be out of George W. Bush’s Iraq war. Like the relief pitcher coming in with the bases loaded, he knew the first three runs to score would be charged to his predecessor. But, any new war troubles would be charged to him. At the White House Aug. 26, Press Secretary James “Jay” Carney said Obama makes national security decisions based on the long-term national security of the United States, not based on polls or political factors. In 2011, this was not the case with our withdrawal from Iraq, although by December it was clear the uprising was metastasizing beyond tribal and regional jealousies. Instead of taking the prudent step of maintaining a conventional contingency on Assad’s backdoor, Obama went the black ops route, which meant more danger to American security, but less exposure politically, when he linked the Libya project with the Syrian project through a CIA-operation to move arms and supplies from Libya to Syria without anyone noticing. Hello #Benghazi. Despite the baggage associated with the Iraq war, there are still many Iraqis willing to work with us and looking for us to buttress their resistance to Persian hegemony. If like Bush before him, Obama can admit a mistake and call for a course correction, we could return to Iraq in a new context as a force for stability in that part of the world, as well as in Iraq to boot. Let’s see, all we need is for Obama to admit a mistake…