Op-Ed: A Look at Iraq Today, and Some Disturbing Alternate Realities

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Since the Millennium, no subject has aroused more passion or fury than the Iraq invasion and subsequent war in 2003, perhaps even more so than the 9/11 attacks and the Global War on Terror.

One reason is easy to see. Since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to rout Taliban and Al Qaeda forces responsible for the 9/11 attacks, only 511 US soldiers (825 including all Coalition forces) have perished in battle.

In Iraq, the count stands today at over 4,000, with an estimated 30,000 other casualties.

The cost in blood and treasure has been astronomical by comparison.

Also, Afghanistan has become relatively stable, though the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces there still present a continuous and ongoing threat from within and without the country.

Iraq has been anything but. It could safely be called a continuing bloodbath, though the flow has seemed to stem of late. But its origins, causes, events and outcomes have all been subjects for controversy and political cannon fodder.

President Bush has been widely castigated for both his reasoning for the war and his missteps since it began. This could not be illustrated more clearly than with the Mission Accomplished fiasco.

Yet, even that was the least of it.

A prime argument for the invasion was Saddam's inability or unwillingness to cough up WMDs as demanded in UN resolutions. Even Colin Powell has expressed doubts on this subject, and he was the Administration's point man at the UN.

Then there was Abu Ghraib and Lyndee England. The pumped-up Jessica Lynch story. Rendition of terror suspects to third countries and Guantanamo Bay. All these events and many others have given both President Bush and America black eyes to much of the rest of the world.

But those battles are in the political realm, for the most part.

Let's take a look at where matters stand today from historical and strategic perspectives.

Let us also look at two alternate realities for Iraq that could be a lot less favorable to the security interests of America and the world at large.

As recent news stories (or lack thereof) and a Report to Congress illustrate, a lot of good things are happening in Iraq today.

Violence is at its lowest levels in the years since the war began. A recent Report to Congress on the war concurs.

Many sectors of Iraq's society and government seem to be stabilizing. New power and oil revenue sharing agreements are in the pipeline. And Sunnis have promised to engage fully in the political process this time around instead of boycotting them.

Perhaps the most significant developments involve the Sunni 'Awakening' against Al Qaeda and the Shiite populations' turning on the gangsterism and senseless violence of the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias.
It would seem the moderate forces are coming to the fore and taking matters into their own hands, rejecting in toto the concept of religion-inspired violence, murders, bombings and mob rule.

Granted, not all agree. This blogger had a lot to say on corruption in the Iraqi government, which I agree is a real problem. But government corruption is hardly the province of the Iraqis alone.

Neither is all the news good. The Shiite militias are still very much a political and societal problem in Iraq, and all it would take to sink the whole show is one spectacular and well-placed Al Qaeda bomb, as happened with the Golden Mosque bombing in Samarra that sent the country into near-civil war.

So that is where things stand today, generally.

Both promising and precipitous.

Yet where would things stand in Iraq had we never invaded and Saddam still reigned supreme there, as he had for nearly four decades?

Or, having invaded, abandoned Iraqis in a wave of relentless violence to fend for themselves against the forces of Al Qaeda, and Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army?

And what if Al Qaeda, supported by truckloads of money and waves of jihadis pouring into Iraq from Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries, pulled off a takeover like they did in Afghanistan against Ahmed Shah Massoud's Northern Army?

First, let's look at Saddam's past to see where Iraq might be today under his iron rule.

SADDAM HUSSEIN

If Saddam Hussein were alive today, he would be 71 years old.

It is possible that his son Qusay, whom he had groomed as his successor, would be taking over much of the day-to-day running of Iraq, particularly the Revolutionary Guard and the Mukhabarat, Saddam's dreaded secret police force (son Uday being disqualified as too extravagant and crazy, which for the Hussein family is saying a lot).

It is also possible that Saddam would still be holding the full reins of power, and life or death, over the Iraqi populace.

The real question is, what would a Saddam-ruled Iraq look like today had the US never invaded?

Let's pick up where Saddam left off in March 2003.

Prior to his deposing Iraq was a political and economic mess, and a thorn in the side of many including the United Nations which had passed seventeen resolutions, all of which Saddam spurned with impunity.

Saddam's Revolutionary Guard was firing on UN aircraft patrolling the designated No-Fly Zones in Northern and Southern Iraq on a daily basis.

Corruption was rampant in the UN Oil-For-Food program designed to curtail Saddam's ability to generate revenue for other than humanitarian reasons, yet Iraqi oil was still pumping freely into the black markets of Jordan and Syria, giving Saddam Hussein plenty to keep building his Solomon-like palaces as his people suffered both privation and persecution.

But it was perhaps his unabashed support of terror groups (as well as the Wahhabi and possibly Al Qaeda-affiliated Ansar al-Islam, which Saddam allowed to operate in the North) that presented the world outside Iraq with the greatest threat.

As a reminder, here is the terrorist training ground in Salman Pak.

How would a present-day Saddam be affecting the situations in Gaza or Lebanon? Might Saddam have leaped full force into the fray during the Israel-Lebanon War of 2006, perhaps launching rocket salvos into Israel like he did in the first Gulf War, thereby aggravating the situation and perhaps spurring a wider conflict?

Would he be pumping boatloads of weapons into Hamas' hands in Gaza, providing even more and deadlier rockets for Hamas and Islamic Jihad to fire into Israel?

What effect would the present-day price of oil, which Saddam (and others like the UN and Kofi Annan's son) was still greatly profiting from, have on Iraqi politics, or possible external aggression by Saddam?

There are so many ways things could have gone, for better or worse. In Saddam's case, mostly worse. One important thing you have to remember about Saddam Hussein was his image of himself as the legendary warrior Saladin and his desire to create a pan-Arabic union of Middle Eastern states, which he attempted with Kuwait and threatened with Saudi Arabia.

Is it possible that Saddam in his declining years might have acted precipitously to make that dream a reality before his passing?

It's not out of the question. Hitler's determination to seize all of Europe and Russia by his 50th birthday and establish his legacy for all time drove him to make some radical and historically unwise decisions.

Might Saddam have done the same?

QUSAY AS IRAQI PRESIDENT

What if Qusay Hussein, the son Saddam groomed as his successor for the presidency, had taken over Iraq?

In many ways, Qusay was just as brutal, dangerous and unpredictable as his father. Besides overseeing the day-to-day operations of Iraqi security forces and the elite Fedayeen Saddam, he played a vital role in crushing the Shiite Uprising following Gulf War I, is thought to have masterminded the destruction of Iraq's Arab marshes, and was accused in 1998 of ordering the summary executions of thousands of political prisoners to make room for new inmates.

Like father, like son.

Except in many ways, Qusay even exceeded his father's bloody ways.

How would Qusay Hussein be directing Iraqi power, oil wealth and influence in today's world?

AL QAEDA ON TOP

Osama bin Laden himself has called Iraq the central battleground for Al Qaeda.

If they win, they gain a stronghold with immense resources and havens from which to ply their terror trade around the globe.

If they lose, it is the worst humiliation they could possibly endure.

Things aren't looking too good right now for them in Iraq.

In fact, even many jihadi websites are declaring Iraq lost.

But what if American and Coalition forces deserted Iraq in the midst of its worst violence, as the UN did in 2003, when Al Qaeda was the ascendant star in places such as Anbar, Ramadi, Diyala and Mosul?

What if the Shiite population was left to fend for itself against an Al Qaeda-led Sunni insurgency that had massive weapons caches stashed around the country, and unlimited resources and jihadis available from around the Middle East to make the Islamist victory in Iraq complete?

It would have made Taliban-controlled Afghanistan look like a playground.

Innocent Shiites, whom the Wahhabi Al Qaeda jihadis detest as infidels, as well as any Sunnis and others in government or in opposition to Al Qaeda tagged as infidels or American collaborators, could have been the victims in a sickening bloodbath bordering on genocide.

It wouldn't have been the first time Al Qaeda attempted genocide. They tried it against the Hazaris in Afghanistan, slaughtering thousands and destroying whole villages.

And they would have an immense staging ground from which to launch attacks on the rest of the world, particularly Israel, which is much closer to Iraq than Afghanistan.

It would be the ultimate in terror states.

Jus imagine Osama bin Laden broadcasting from Iraqi TV in Baghdad. And that would be the least of it.

WHERE THINGS STAND TODAY

It is still a war against an implacable foe bent on destruction and sowing discord. And the social and political situations must continue to improve if there is to be any hope for Iraq's future.

Yet from a purely military, strategic and geopolitical standpoint, there are many upsides to the changes that have taken place in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

According to a Wikipedia report, up to 23,400 Islamist jihadis and insurgents have been killed by US and Coalition forces in Iraq. No doubt many more have been killed by Sunnis in the 'Awakening' movement, the irony being those jihadis would much rather have been captured by American forces than Anbar Sunnis.

That's thousands of Islamist jihadists drawn like moths to the Iraqi flame and extinguished.

Their murderous tactics there, such as their houses of torture, beheadings and massive indiscriminate suicide bombings, have lowered support for Al Qaeda and suicide bombings significantly across the globe, from disturbing highs a few short years ago in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

It has unfortunately been a brutal experience for both the the Iraqi people and loved ones of the fallen and severely wounded here in America, but in the larger picture that's thousands of jihadis that might well have been operating in Afghanistan, causing the bloody tolls to rise there, or left free to operate within cells in Western societies.

There is also the unfavorable strategic situation Iran finds itself in, sandwiched between American, NATO and Coalition forces on its Afghan and Iraqi borders.

It hasn't seemed to slow the Iranians down, considering the not-so-hidden support of Iraqi Shiite militias, its backing of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Nor has it toned down its rhetoric vis-a-vis Israel, and the Iranians seems to be moving full speed ahead in their desire to develop and acquire nuclear weapons, which even the IAEA blasted this past week.

The problems for Iran are obvious.

Should they make real trouble, they face extremely formidable military forces on both their eastern and western borders.

The role of the progressing democratizations of Iraq and Afghanistan, however stumbling and precipitous, may also play a part in influencing moderation in Iran, particularly young people under 25 who constitute over 60 percent of the population, and who may be wondering why they have to live under 7th Century rules and laws while their neighbors are moving forward into the 21st.

IN CLOSING

The world has never been a simple place, full of contraditions and unpredictable factors that could come out of nowhere and completely change the global political landscape, as happened after 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.

Another Golden Mosque-like bombing in Iraq could tank any and all political progress there and throw the country into full-blown civil war, as would be Al Qaeda's ultimate goal. It is in chaos, not order, that they thrive.

That said, I am sure there are many Iraqis who sleep much better at night knowing Saddam or Qusay Hussein's ruthless security forces won't be knocking on their doors at three in the morning to torture them in front of their families, or drag their wives and daughters off to rape rooms.

I'm sure the Kurds are breathing easier too, both literally and figuratively.

The good news is, Saddam is gone and dead, and he and his sons are no longer free to terrorize their own people or use the resources of Iraq for sinister purposes.

Al Qaeda is suffering major Iraq-based defeats, both military and political. The stark disillusionment from both among Islamists who now see Al Qaeda as a toothless lion, as well as millions around the world turning their heads in collective revulsion at Al Qaeda's subhuman brutality in Iraq, may accelerate the decline and fall of Al Qaeda and other international Islamist terror groups.

Nothing but good could come from that.

No doubt the Iraq War will remain a hot topic of political debate for as long as it is being fought, or as long as American troops must remain to stabilize the country and provide security as the Iraqi police and Army get back on their feet enough to defend their own country.

The controversy over John McCain's '100 years' comment is proof of that.

But as I've stated here, in the larger picture of geopolitics and strategy, there may yet be a great deal of good to come from it.

Iraq may yet become a free, stable and democratic society, though an admittedly long way to go.

And if it helps to rapidly hasten the decline of Al Qaeda around the world as no other event could have, and results in their eventual disbanding as a formidable international terrorist organization, it just might just have been worth it.

For the record, I am a veteran who wore the unform of this nation for six years, and nothing troubles me more than thinking of my brothers-in-arms perishing or suffering greatly in battle.

No one hates war more than the soldier, General Douglas MacArthur famously stated.

But that did not keep him from carrying out his orders and fighting, because he knew there were worse alternatives and outcomes than war.

Whether you are for or against the Iraq War, it cannot be in dispute that for our own security interests, and the interest of crushing what is left of Al Qaeda in Iraq and all that entails, and in the interest of stabilizing Iraq so that some form of democracy may yet acquire a tenuous foothold in the sea of theocracies and dictatorships that litter the Middle East we must finish the job, however unpleasant that task may seem.

The situation is much more favorable than it has been in the past to achieve those goals, and we have sacrificed far too greatly to merely throw away all that we have achieved recently to help Al Qaeda and other destabilizing forces in Iraq a chance to get back on their feet by precipitous and unilateral withdrawal.

I'll leave it for you all to debate the finer points, but that is how I see where we are today in Iraq.

Or where we could have been under other not-so-favorable circumstances.