Each new anniversary reinforces, with even more arguments, the same conclusion: the war in Iraq did not contribute to improving the country’s situation, but the opposite.
None of the objectives announced to justify Operation Iraqi Freedom have been fulfilled. The country has not been disarmed of the alleged arsenal of mass destruction, as the argument was false. Nor did it end with the alleged collusion between the Iraqi dictator and Al-Qaida because there was no evidence that the aforementioned cooperation existed. With regard to the project of making Iraq a model democratic state for the region, we have never been so far from this scenario. Two falsehoods and a resounding failure. The legacy of that war is a country mired in political instability, while sectarian violence, foreign interference and corruption make change impossible.
In political terms, the system of sharing power between the country’s ethnic and religious communities marginalized the Sunnis, allowed the Iraqi insurgency to take root in society, and opened a vicious cycle of sectarian violence in the country. Jihadist groups were able to exploit the marginalization of Sunnis to such an extent that, without the invasion of Iraq, it is likely that the Islamic State would never have existed. On the other hand, sectarianism plunged the country into permanent political instability while it has encouraged political officials to give priority to the ethnic or religious group they represent and not to the Iraqi nation as such. Hence the main demand, which was expressed in the protests of 2019, was to put an end to the sectarianization of politics.
Two more indirect consequences of the invasion make change difficult: on the one hand, Iran took advantage of sectarianism in Iraq, where the majority of the population is Shia, to expand its influence and interfere in internal affairs. On the other hand, the power vacuum after the overthrow of the Iraqi regime and the subsequent insurgency favored the emergence of some 80 militias with a power superior to that of the Iraqi army, as evidenced by clashes between the militias Shiites and the armed forces in the summer.
At the regional level, the intervention of March 2003, contrary to the principles of the United Nations Charter, seems to have normalized the use of military force as a way of resolving certain conflicts. NATO intervened in Libya to free the people from the dictatorship. This intervention plunged the country into civil war and destabilized the Sahel. The last example is Mali and the military failure of a retreating France. It is a surprising paradox: even if these interventions have worsened the situation in these countries, military force continues to be used to achieve political changes. These precedents also allow other regional powers to use Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen as a space for direct or indirect confrontation.
While those responsible for these wars go unpunished, the populations suffer the consequences of this vicious circle. Millions of civilians died in the region, while the number of refugees and internally displaced people exceeds ten million people. The discredit of the West, accused of using the promotion of democracy as a pretext to defend its interests, has not stopped growing in the region. In this context, it is at least incomprehensible that, once again, there are voices being raised in Washington and Tel-Aviv that encourage a military intervention in Iran. As if these twenty continuous years of regional instability have not left enough evidence of the failure of the neoconservative doctrine that gave rise to that war.
