The Positive and Negative Impact of The Iraq War On U.S Foreign Policy

Mohammed Ja’afaru

Some background information on Iraq. Iraq and other Persian Gulf countries were created following World War I as protectorates of Great Britain. They were carved out of Mesopotamia, which was formerly part of the Turkish Empire. Iraq includes three major groups the Sunni Muslims who are in the center surrounding the capital of Baghdad, the Kurds who are in the north, and the Shi’a Muslims who are in the south. About 15% of the population is Kurdish, 80% Arab, and 60% are Shi’ite Muslims like their neighbors in Iran, but they are Arabs not Persians. But none of these groups were given any national rights in the League of nation settlement after the war. However, national and tribal disputes, as well as friction with Western powers trying to control Iraqi oil, have played a great part in Iraq history. British and US interests were fixed on Iraq after the discoveries of petroleum there. The United State succeeded in pressuring Great Britain to share petroleum rights in Iraq. In 1931, Iraq became independent with a pro-British regime under King Feisal and Nuri-as-Said.

A pro-Axis coup in 1941 was reversed by British intervention. But after World War II, the US was worried about Soviet influences, and so tried to make Iraq the anchor of a NATO like pro Western alliance, the Baghdad pact. The Western alliance was overthrown by Abd al-Karim Qasim in 1958. Qasim survived a Ba’athist coup that included the participation of Saddam Hussein in 1959. Kuwait and other neighboring protectorates became independent of Britain beginning in 1961, and Iraq laid claims on them in order to gain oil resources and because of its need for outlets to the sea. It is believed that it was the US intelligence that helped Saddam’s Ba’ath party seize power for the first time in 1963. It was also proved that Saddam was on the CIA payroll as early as 1959, when he participated in a failed assassination attempt against Iraqi strongman Abd al- karim Qassem. By the early 1970s, Saddam Hussein had risen to high rank in the Iraqi government and in 1979 he finally assumed the supreme leadership.

His dictatorship ever since was marked by extreme cruelty and repression against all his opponents. He waged a long and costly war against neighboring Iran from 1980-88 backed by arms and aid from US, UK, as well as France, Russia, Germany and others. During that period no one in Washington complained about his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs in the 1980s, because he was viewed as a useful ally against the Iranian threat. Rather, the US and Britain supported Saddam in the war against Iran, giving Iraq arms, money, satellite intelligence, and even chemical and bio-weapon precursors. In addition, as many as 90 US military advisors supported Iraqi forces and helped pick targets for Iraqi air and missile attacks. But Saddam provoked the United State when he invaded Kuwait in August 1990, which led to UN sanctions and then the UN-approved military action led by the United States. Since then Saddam was portrayed by the U.S as one of the world’s most dangerous and violent criminals.

Following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, US government officials charged that Iraq was linked to the Al-Qaeda network of Osama Bin Laden, and may have contributed in the World trade Center attacks. Then in 2003 the US government attacked Iraq and removed Saddam from power. The U.S justified the war in Iraq by giving a number of reasons whose basis turned out to be false. The two main reasons given as justification for the invasion were firstly to protect America’s national security interests secondly to promote the spread of democracy and freedom in the middle-east. Some of the specific reasons for the invasion given by the Bush administration were that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and that the terrorist act of 9/11 carried out by Al-Qaeda was connected with Iraq. The Bush administration also justified the war by stating that one of its foreign policy goals was to spread democracy and freedom throughout the world and since Saddam Hussein was a brutal and murderous dictator it launched the invasion in order to bring freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq. The Bush administration also said that by installing a democracy in the middle-east, that would pave the way for democratizing the other countries in the region.

I think the main reasons the U.S went into Iraq was for its own special national interest which was to gain control of Iraq’s very large oil reserves. Also I see the war in Iraq as unnecessary because, it creates a negative impact on U.S foreign policy and weakens the American image around the world. On the other hand, the war in Iraq is necessary for the U.S because it was supposed to show the rest of world that the US was a super power willing to protect its national security and this use of military force was a tool to influence the foreign policy making of other countries so as not to challenge US interests. This use of force was also designed to show that the U.S is invincible and to intimidate any potential challenger to US interests.

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Some of the negative impact of the in war in Iraq is that it will affect the U.S foreign policy because the war has caused the views of many Americans citizens and other people around the world to change. Most people around the world now see the war as being bad and unnecessary for many reasons. The war has caused a humanitarian crisis in Iraq bringing displacement, injury and death to thousands of Iraqis. The invasion of Iraq by the U.S coalition in March 2003 has caused many civilian casualties. The counter-insurgency operations, including massive attacks on cities like Falluja, Najaf and Tel Afar, led to substantially increased mortality and large displacement, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. In 2006, sectarian clashes worsened and inter-communal violence led to rising death and injury, as well as massive new displacement. Iraqis have been threatened because of their religious affiliation or profession. Sectarian militias and armed groups have attacked mosques, markets and villages of rivals. Mixed neighborhoods are increasingly polarized. Also in October 2006, an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis were displaced within the country and around 1.6 million were refugees abroad. Also the Iraqi government estimates that 50,000 people are leaving their homes each month. The scale of the problem and the difficulty of reaching the displaced put the crisis practically beyond the capacity of the international relief system. According to an April 30, 2007 report from the US State Department, the U.S government has accepted only 68 Iraqi refugees in six months, claming it lacks enough personnel to complete the immigration process. These numbers are far below the two million Iraqi’s that have left the country since 2003. A very large number of Iraqis have died under the occupation and the rate of mortality has risen sharply. Including combat deaths, coalition forces have killed many Iraqi civilians.

Apart from the displacement and violence the war has had devastating effects on the Iraqi economy and the quality of life of the people. According to the United Nations Development Program, one third of the population now lives in poverty and five percent of the population is living in extreme poverty. Also the report finds that the damaged infrastructure is one of the most important factors that creates poor living conditions in the country, with 85 percent of all households lacking a stable source of electricity, 70 percent struggling to dispose of garbage and 40 percent lacking adequate sanitation facilities. Education has broken down and hospitals lack basic medical supplies and are understaffed. The public distribution system for food rations has stopped functioning in certain areas of the country, leaving four million Iraqis acutely vulnerable due to food insecurity. Severe malnutrition has doubled between 2003 and 2005. The Iraq’s humanitarian emergency has reached a crisis level that compares with some of the world’s most urgent calamities.

Another negative effect of the Iraq war is the atrocities and criminal homicides in Iraq caused by the American troops. The US-led occupation forces have committed numerous atrocities in Iraq since the invasion. Some Iraqi cities have become synonymous with murder, rape, multiple killing of civilians, and also prison abuse of Iraqi prisoners. While some cases have been brought before military hearings, the Pentagon has covered up most of these cases and exonerated the soldiers involved. Rather than pursuing high officials and senior officers, military prosecutors have pursued only a few low ranking soldiers and most cases have yielded relatively light punishments, while the majority have seen original charges of murder downgraded to lighter charges or even dismissed completely. The United States has repeatedly insisted that the atrocities were committed by a few bad apples obscuring the fact that troops are regularly committing such crimes under a system of unrestrained violence attributable to those at the top. Under the doctrine of command responsibility applied by the U.S in the post-World War II war crimes trials, high officials and senior officers must assume responsibility for violations of international law, even if they did not give direct orders for such violations to take place. A truly independent investigation should investigate killings and cover-ups in this climate. Here are a few examples of some of these cases. A U.S military commander established permissive “rules of engagement” allowing troops to use deadly force against virtually any perceived threat. As a consequence, the U.S and its allies regularly kill Iraqi civilians at checkpoints and during military operations, on the basis of the merest suspicion. U.S Coalition forces also kill many Iraqi non-combatants during military operations and air strikes. The U.S also launched air strikes against rural villages in Baqubah, claiming that the offensive was aimed at crushing the insurgency. But the U.S officials said the attacks were successful and there were no civilian casualties. However, according to the media officer for Diyala province council, at least 14 people were killed and approximately 110 families were without water and food supplies as there was no prior announcement about the offensive. The Institute of Peace and Development in Iraq also reported that U.S troops have blocked NGOs access to the villages, hindering them from helping those Iraqis with urgent needs. Also a group of Marines and a Navy corpsman attempted to cover up the April 2006 murder of an Iraqi man by planting a weapon on him to make it appear he had been killed in a shootout. In their defense, the Marines revealed that officers had instructed them to step up the violence against suspected insurgents. This incident suggests that the pervasive culture of cruelty among U.S servicemen in Iraq may originate from further up the military chain of command. And also continuing instability in Iraq may make the country a breeding ground for anti-U.S terrorism because it is assumed that the Iraqi’s are getting help and weapons from other extremist living in countries such as Iran and Pakistan.

The War in Iraq has caused many combatant death, injuries and illness. Since the start of the war 3,689 coalition troops have been killed in Iraq. There is additional unknown mental and physical morbidity from war related causes. Meanwhile little is known about Iraqi combatants injured during the war estimated to range between 40,000 and 135,000 in 2003. They also have very little access to rehabilitative health services.

Abuse of women and girls by the U.S troops is another major problem caused by the war in Iraq. Insecurity and especially the actual and perceived dangers of sexual violence have created a climate of fear that prevents women and girls from participating in public life like going to school, going to work, seeking medical treatment, or even leaving their homes. Iraqi women are thus prevented from fully participating in the crucial early phases of recovery and reconstruction according to the Human Rights Watch 2004. Since April 2003, at least 400 women and girls as young as eight were reported to have been raped during or after the war, underreporting due to stigmatization of victims of sexual violence means the real figure may be much higher according to the UN Development fund for Women 2004. Also attendance at three Baghdad schools was less than 50%, with female absenteeism mainly attributed to insecurity. Fear of kidnapping and gender violence have also prevented women from seeking health care for themselves and their children according to UN report 2003.

The war in Iraq has caused poverty which drives children to work for armed groups. Since the beginning of the U.S occupation in Iraq, the country’s economic and social conditions have deteriorated, forcing thousands of children to leave school to work for Sunni and Shia militia. A growing number of these children are producing bombs for armed groups and helping to fight occupation forces, risking dangerous injuries or death while earning only $3 a day. The violence in Iraq also prevents children from having access to education, healthcare and a stable community life, harming the prospects of the country’s future generations. In southern Iraq, leukemia among children and breast cancer among women have increased by 20% since the start of the war. Doctors and researchers blame this surge on the breakdown of the Iraqi health care system, harmful pesticides used to grow food and depression of the immune system brought on by living in a constant war zone. Cancer deaths make up 45% of the total deaths and children are frequently born without limbs or organs or develop cancer in as little time as four weeks after birth. The U.S and the Iraqi government have been unable to safeguard the lives of the Iraqi children which is in direct violation of the declaration of the rights of the child, which states that every child should enjoy protection and have access to education.

There is also lack of food security in Iraq because of the war. Despite all its agricultural resources, Iraq is facing a collapse in food supplies. Iraqi farmers cannot run generators to pump water for irrigating their crops. According to a report by the International Organization of Migration, 1.5 million internally displaced people in the country lack adequate food. Local and international food aid delivered to Iraq has diminished after kidnappings of activists in the country. Also most of the local farmers are unable to get their food to the markets due to security reasons and many of them went bankrupt after the U.S administration decreased the tariffs on imported products. Nevertheless, foreign companies supply Iraqis with poor quality food, which now due to inflation is very expensive. Because of all the above incidences the war in Iraq is unpopular even among American citizens and also around the World. Many Americans think that the U.S government should focus more on their domestic needs rather than spending lots of their budget money in funding the war in Iraq. Also the War in Iraq will attract more terrorist attacks from the extremists because they see the war as a religious war on Muslims.

However, the war in Iraq also has had some positive impact because it has allowed the US to begin to implement some of its foreign policy and national security goals. Most of the actions that the U.S government takes in other countries are for its own special interest and one of the main reasons for the war in Iraq was to gain control over Iraq’s oil reserves and eventually by controlling oil supplies, to establish control over all countries that are dependent on oil imports. Another goal was to establish military bases in Iraq from which the US could dominate the Middle East. The US is busy building massive bases in Iraq and it appears that it intends to maintain a substantial military presence in Iraq for a very long time. The US also wanted to remove the threat to Israel posed by Iraq which it has successfully done. Another important reason for the U.S takeover of Iraq was that Iraq had begun to accept payment in euros for its oil, opening the way for all major oil producers to do this. Were this to happen, then the euro would probably become the world’s reserve currency, not the dollar. This would have a major negative impact on the U.S economy which would in fact, cause the collapse of the U.S economy and would also reduce its ability to pour money into its weapons programs. So by gaining control of Iraq’s oil reserve the U.S can now refuse payment in euros, thereby maintaining the dollar as the reserve currency which is a smart thing to do.

The war in Iraq will also help to make the U.S economy stronger because war is always good for those companies which manufacture weapons in collusion with the government or supply services to the war effort. For such companies the death and destruction from the war is of no concern. In this case there is an extra bonus, the profits to be made from contracts to reconstruct Iraq. Even before the war began the Bush administration had awarded contracts worth billions of dollars to large American companies, principally Bechtel and Halliburton whose chief executive until 2000 was Dick Cheney. And the U.S is hoping that the Europeans and Japanese will pay most of the costs, but more likely it will be the U.S taxpayer who foots the bills from these American companies.

Another reason why the war in Iraq was necessary for the U.S is because the war against Iraq will drive American dominance around the world. An invasion of Iraq had been part of the geopolitical strategy of the United States for many years. It was one element of a strategy designed to gain for the U.S domination of the World’s economic resources. This plan was made public in the “National Security Strategy of the United States of America” which was published in September 2002.

Another positive effect of the war was that the U.S led coalition’s defeat of Saddam Hussein rid the Middle East of a brutal regime and eliminated a potential source of State-sponsored terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Many al Qaeda leaders have been captured, and there has been no repeat attack on U.S territory. Yet terrorist attacks continue in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Russia. By removing Saddam Hussein who was a brutal leader the US sent a message to other dictators not to harbor any terrorists in their country. This had the positive effect of convincing Colonel Gaddafi of Libya to give up his program to develop weapons of mass destruction and to seek better relations with the west. Having removed Saddam it is in the U.S national interest to prevent Iraq from becoming a failed state where al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups will flourish and build bases from which to launch attacks.

The war also brought about democracy to the people of Iraq giving them the right to be able to choose their own leaders and also the U.S will help build a strong democratic government in Iraq for the Iraqi people for the first time after the previous long brutal government of Saddam Hussein. During his reign, Hussein invaded two countries, fired missiles at three other countries, and used illegal chemical weapons against Iran and his own people; he also left behind at least 300,000 victims in mass graves. That shows that removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right thing to do. Also the fact that the United Nations Security Council continues to authorize the U.S. military presence in Iraq signals that the international community wants the U.S in Iraq. An argument can be made that America is safer now because it is forever rid of the potential threat posed by Saddam’s WMD programs, which easily could have been reconstituted if his regime had survived. Most Iraqis want democracy, and increasing numbers have voted in each new round of elections. Also over 90% of Iraqi towns and provinces now have their own governing councils, including the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala. Oil production has continued to increase, and recently it has averaged between 1.5 and 2million barrels per day.

The war in Iraq has also improved the U.S economy. Reports have shown that the combination of lower business and personal taxes plus newly created cash from the Federal Reserve is already prompting a modest 3% economic rebound. The current level of gross domestic product is nearly $150 billion higher than the last quarter of 2000, or the peak of the 1990’s boom. Inside the economy, profit margins are widening and top-line sales revenues are gradually moving up. Record-setting productivity is holding down costs. And an overly pessimistic stock market is beginning to catch up to a rise in corporate earnings.

In conclusion, I think the war in Iraq was not necessary because there are better ways to resolve the Iraq problem of WMD which is through diplomacy. From the point of view of the self interests of the US, the war was necessary because it is helping to achieve some important foreign policy objectives such as emphasizing US military dominance and the war has also improved the growth of the economy. The US is now the only superpower and has shown that in a conventional war, its military cannot be challenged. The US now has the military bases it has always wanted in the middle-east given that it had to abandon its bases in Saudi Arabia. Only time will tell whether the invasion will lead to a democratic Iraq that will serve as an example for other countries in the region or whether we will have a full fledged civil war that could lead to the break up of the country along ethnic and religious lines. The worst case scenario would be to have a failed state that becomes a haven for terrorists. Many people believe that the invasion was a disaster for the Iraqi people and they were better off under Saddam. At this point even some former supporters of the Bush administration believe that the war was a mistake. One positive thing that could come out of this debacle is that the American people will be less willing to allow their government to invade another country even if they are told that the victory will be quick. Since the US invasion has been so harmful to the people of Iraq the US has an obligation to rectify these problems by putting more effort into rebuilding the Iraqi healthcare system, infrastructure, employment, and to meet the basic needs of the country. The US should also set a time table to start to withdraw their troops from Iraq because this will reduce the violence launched by the militants and also reduce terrorist attacks.

References

Global Policy Forum <www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/histindex.htm

Enduring Effect Of War http;//www.medac.org/content/wnd-and-conflict/medact%20iraq%2004.pdf

The Iraq war <www.serendipity.li/iraqwar.htm

War In Iraq <www.heritage.org/Research/middleeast/wm1565.htm