This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 27, 2011 - We are about to witness the conclusion of the war in Iraq. Last Friday, President Obama announced that the U.S. will withdraw all of its troops from that forlorn land by year's end. My guess is that they'll be home in time for the holidays.
Don't look for photos of sailors and nurses locked in jubilant public embrace over this event because it figures to elicit more whimper than bang. A weary sigh would probably best represent the collective response.
Our forces will leave, the commander-in-chief advises, "with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops. That is how America's military efforts in Iraq will end." In marketing, this sort of spin-doctoring is referred to as putting lipstick on the pig.
Conceived in hubris and mistakenly executed, this expensive and bloody misadventure will now yield the bitter harvest of folly. The neo-cons' dream of a democratic miracle in the Middle East is poised to collapse under the weight of its own internal contradictions.
Though the U.S. combat mission in Iraq had ended with the conclusion of G.W. Bush's celebrated "surge," plans remained for a continuing American presence in the form of a substantial training force to support the indigenous military and police. Those hopes were dashed, when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reported that his parliament refused to grant immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops beyond the first of the year.
Without immunity, an American soldier who employed deadly force during a mission could face criminal charges under Iraqi law. That state of affairs is obviously unacceptable, so we're going home. In effect, we gave the Iraqis the gift of democracy and they used it to vote us out.
We leave behind a puppet government to rule a country torn by internal ethnic strife, bordered by a hostile Turkey to the north and a restless Iran to the east. It shouldn't take too long for this house of cards to fall.
And the price of recklessness is seldom cheap. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Iraq invasion will cost $1.9 trillion by 2017 -- a figure that includes interest paid on money borrowed to pay for the war. That comes out to about $6,300 for every U.S. citizen.
Of course, there is also the human toll. To date, 4,479 Americans have given their lives in the campaign; 4,338 of whom died after the famous "Mission Accomplished" media event. An additional 31,827 have been wounded. Civilian casualty estimates vary widely, but all agree that well more than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed.
That's a pretty steep tab in blood and treasure for an exercise that Dick Cheney predicted would pay for itself. The grateful Iraqis, the theory went, would happily reimburse us for the cost of their liberation out of their new-found oil revenues. With Saddam out of the way, a prosperous, stable, pro-western democracy was supposed to emerge as our military ally and commercial trading partner. Somehow, that halcyon vision never quite materialized.
I suppose it's still possible that Iraq will develop into a regional supporter of American diplomatic aims but I doubt it. To understand the basis of my skepticism, one need only monitor the progress we're making in Afghanistan.
There, we returned Hamid Karzai from exile and installed him in power to replace the al-Qaida-friendly Taliban regime we'd toppled. For the past 10 years, we've spent billions in military support and civilian aid to maintain his administration. As I write these words, U.S. troops are in harm's way conducting counter-insurgency operations on his behalf.
But the affably corrupt Karzai seems to have grown rather testy of late. In a televised interview last week, he informed viewers that his nation would support Pakistan should the U.S. ever go to war against that country. So much for gratitude.
Perhaps as a result of our highly successful occupations of Germany and Japan after World War II, our leaders seem to believe that one way to make friends in the international community is to conquer a people, then perform home improvement projects on their behalf. We've never replicated the strategy's initial successes, however, because each was the result of unique circumstances.
Once it became obvious that their nation would fall, many Germans fled toward the advancing Western armies rather than surrender to the Soviets. The Marshall Plan was enlightened and compassionate diplomacy but it worked in Germany because it was the best option left to our former enemies.
When Japan surrendered, the only condition granted the vanquished was that the emperor could retain his throne. Realizing that his continued reign relied on American good will, Hirohito ordered his fanatically loyal subjects to cooperate with the occupation. Neither of these unusual situations is likely to recur any time soon.
It's tempting to dismiss the Iraq calamity as the latest chapter in Barbara Tuchman's "March of Folly" but I can't because of Ali Abbas. You probably don't remember him by name -- neither did I -- but you know him.
During the American invasion in March 2003, young Ali was asleep one night when his home was struck by a missile. The impact killed his mother, his father and 14 relatives. Ali sustained extensive burn wounds to his torso and lost both of his arms, but survived.
I can't shake the photo of the little boy sitting in the hospital bed with bandaged stumps where his arms should have been. Surrounded by medical staff, his wide eyes gaze imploringly into the camera as though to ask, "Why did you do this to me?"
That's a damned good question for which I lack a damned good answer.
M.W. Guzy is a retired St. Louis cop who currently works for the city Sheriff's Department. His column appears weekly in the Beacon.