Think Tank
The Dangers of Over-Correcting for the Iraq War By Linda Killian
THE WALL SREET JOURNAL
Displaced members of Iraq’s Yazidi minority cross the Iraq-Syria border along the Fishkhabur bridge over the Tigris River, in northern Iraq, on Monday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
While so many are watching Martha’s Vineyard–where former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama are expected to “hug it out” Wednesday night to put to rest any question of a rift over Iraq–discussions of that conflict and America’s role in the world aren’t going away.
The mess that Iraq has become and doubts about why the U.S. launched the incredibly costly and unnecessary war have left deep scars on the American public and U.S. foreign policy.
Mr. Obama is president in no small part because of Mrs. Clinton’s initial support for the war. She was one of 29 Democratic senators–including Joe Biden, Harry Reid and John Kerry–who voted in favor of the resolution authorizing the war in 2002, a decision that was extremely unpopular among Democratic primary voters six years later.
But in the face of lessons from the George W. Bush administration’s costly war–the U.S. spent more than $2 trillion on Iraq, the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies estimated last year; at least 200,000 Iraqis were killed, almost 5,000 Americans died and more than 30,000 Americans were wounded, many with permanent injuries–Mr. Obama seems to have overcorrected.
As Mrs. Clinton pointed out in a recent interview with the Atlantic, “It was stupid to do what we did in Iraq and to have no plan about what to do after we did it.” But she also argues that it would be a mistake to be too timid in asserting “the importance of our power, our influence, and our values appropriately deployed and explained.”
The U.S. shouldn’t launch attacks on other nations for shoddy reasons, but neither should this country withdraw from its role as the world’s democratic leader or be afraid to defend U.S. interests.
Many have made the point that with the land and weapons the Islamic State holds in Iraq and financial assets it has seized, that group is potentially much more dangerous and brutal than al-Qaeda and poses a serious threat to not only the U.S. but also the broader region and Europe. Mrs. Clinton made a serious point about support for moderates in Syria and a missed opportunity in countering the Islamic State there. We will never know how that might have weakened the Sunni extremists. But now Mr. Obama needs to engage U.S. allies and make the case to them and the American public that stronger action may be needed to counter this menace.
Linda Killian is a journalist and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Her most recent book is “The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents.” She is on Twitter: @lindajkillian.
ALSO IN THINK TANK:
* Advancing U.S. Interests in Iraq Will Require More Than Airstrikes
* Why U.S. Airstrikes in Iraq Are Not a Major Change in Strategy
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