In prosecuting the War on Terror following 9/11, a necessary step for the Americans was to remove the 50,000 USA troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. Their presence was one of the motivating factors of Osama bin Laden in his attempt to take the Kingdom for himself. This is a detail that has not been well remembered: 9/11 was about bin Laden's attempt to overthrow the Saudi gov't, it had little to do with America itself. Bin Laden's larger goal was to install himself as the Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques (another title for the King of Saudi Arabia) and watch over the crumbling of the Western powers. Thwarting American intervention in the Arab world generally (and in Saudi Arabia particularly) was a necessary component of bin Laden's larger mission. The USA's relationship to the Saudi royal family had been deteriorating for decades, removing the troops from Saudi Arabia was at once a move to mollify militant Arabs and to continue to minimize ties to the Saudis. (*)
But USA completely leaving the region was not gonna happen especially with imminent military actions being contemplated. Rather than remove troops from the Middle East entirely, the plan was to move them into Iraq and push Saddam Hussein out of power. The strategic geography of Iraq is USA's ultimate goal and ridding the world of Saddam Hussein (and his murderous thug sons) was just a bonus. The proximity to oil has less to do with USA's interest in oil as in everyone else's interest in it, the WMD's were always just an empty pretext, the connection to al-Qaeda was never really necessary just a thought experiment for the masses to ponder. All that other political shmazz that went into the war were just words, not deeds. This is not merely cynical foreign policy. That land is being fought over by the Americans, all manner of Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and a panoply of Arabs. People have been fighting over that land for thousands of years but at this moment of history, everyone is fighting over it. American Presidents must contend with the Arab World (what others may call the Middle East) as a cornerstone of foreign policy for decades to come.
Placing the troops in Iraq was meant to be a permanent state of affairs that would give the American military a centralized location from which to strike Iran, Saudi Arabia and/or Syria. All that needed to be done was pushing Saddam out of power. If you will recall, though the global community did not generally favor USA's invasion of Iraq, no one stood up for Saddam himself. No one objected to the Americans on the grounds that Saddam deserved to stay in power (not even Syria). Saddam was a 'market dominant minority' (not a perfect use of that term but its apt so I'm sticking with it): because Sunnis make up a minority of the Iraqi population, a Sunni executive is pretty much destined to be an iron-fisted tyrant in order to keep a constant clamp on his many enemies. Iraq is made up of a large Shia population (roughly 60%) and Kurds (roughly 20%) and Sunnis (20%). For Saddam to maintain power, he had to be ruthless toward anything that would threaten his rule. (Worth noting that Arabs in particular do not like instability, they would prefer an iron-fisted tyrant to anarchy, which is why put-upon minorities in the Arab world invariably reach for terror: they don't have the strength to dominate but they willing occasionally to disrupt)
When USA invaded Iraq in 2003 with the express purpose of removing Saddam, it was taking a lid off the roiling sectarian conflicts that Saddam fought hard to keep in check for three decades. The sects and their conflicts go back hundreds of years and Saddam had no interest in uniting these groups, who undoubtedly would've united against him, rather he just wanted to dominate them because that is basically what had always happened. These groups never came together because there was never a unifying force, only a suppressing force. USA removed the suppression under the hopes of being able to unify them under a multi-cultural constitutional republic.
But USA completely leaving the region was not gonna happen especially with imminent military actions being contemplated. Rather than remove troops from the Middle East entirely, the plan was to move them into Iraq and push Saddam Hussein out of power. The strategic geography of Iraq is USA's ultimate goal and ridding the world of Saddam Hussein (and his murderous thug sons) was just a bonus. The proximity to oil has less to do with USA's interest in oil as in everyone else's interest in it, the WMD's were always just an empty pretext, the connection to al-Qaeda was never really necessary just a thought experiment for the masses to ponder. All that other political shmazz that went into the war were just words, not deeds. This is not merely cynical foreign policy. That land is being fought over by the Americans, all manner of Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, and a panoply of Arabs. People have been fighting over that land for thousands of years but at this moment of history, everyone is fighting over it. American Presidents must contend with the Arab World (what others may call the Middle East) as a cornerstone of foreign policy for decades to come.
Placing the troops in Iraq was meant to be a permanent state of affairs that would give the American military a centralized location from which to strike Iran, Saudi Arabia and/or Syria. All that needed to be done was pushing Saddam out of power. If you will recall, though the global community did not generally favor USA's invasion of Iraq, no one stood up for Saddam himself. No one objected to the Americans on the grounds that Saddam deserved to stay in power (not even Syria). Saddam was a 'market dominant minority' (not a perfect use of that term but its apt so I'm sticking with it): because Sunnis make up a minority of the Iraqi population, a Sunni executive is pretty much destined to be an iron-fisted tyrant in order to keep a constant clamp on his many enemies. Iraq is made up of a large Shia population (roughly 60%) and Kurds (roughly 20%) and Sunnis (20%). For Saddam to maintain power, he had to be ruthless toward anything that would threaten his rule. (Worth noting that Arabs in particular do not like instability, they would prefer an iron-fisted tyrant to anarchy, which is why put-upon minorities in the Arab world invariably reach for terror: they don't have the strength to dominate but they willing occasionally to disrupt)
When USA invaded Iraq in 2003 with the express purpose of removing Saddam, it was taking a lid off the roiling sectarian conflicts that Saddam fought hard to keep in check for three decades. The sects and their conflicts go back hundreds of years and Saddam had no interest in uniting these groups, who undoubtedly would've united against him, rather he just wanted to dominate them because that is basically what had always happened. These groups never came together because there was never a unifying force, only a suppressing force. USA removed the suppression under the hopes of being able to unify them under a multi-cultural constitutional republic.
The Americans assumed that once we vanquished Saddam and the Sunnis from Baghdad, the Shia would be eager for our support and guidance; the Americans could then craft a multi-cultural constitution that would give equal (or at least proportional) power to the three main Iraqi groups. But the Shia were stronger than the Americans realized and never trusted the Americans anyway, so once Saddam was gone, the Shia were quick to jump into the power vacuum, squeeze out the Kurds and the Sunnis and begin the efforts to remove the Americans. However, there are sects within the sects and the Shia were divided between pro-Iranian groups and anti-Iranian groups (within that subdivision is a further subdivision of those sympathetic to the Kurds and those not sympathetic to the Kurds).
With the Sunnis having been pushed out of Baghdad and the Kurds unable to gain a political foothold, it was the pro-Iran Shia fighting off the anti-Iran Shia in the years after the American invasion that formed most of what we would consider the Constitutional construction phase. Iran's influence cannot be understated and once Nouri al-Maliki rises to power, he doesn't fight for democracy, rather he fights to maintain his own stranglehold on the political process. This alienates the Kurds and the Sunnis and heightens the divisions within the Shia community.
In the instability of the outlying regions comes al-Qaeda, who infiltrate the Anbhar Province hoping to find recruits from pro-Saddam Sunnis. Initially they are successful. But the local Sunnis eventually turn on al-Qaeda because al-Qaeda wasn't pro-Iraq, it was anti-American. Sidenote: in the 1980s when USSR invaded Afghanistan, it led to a migration of righteous Arabs eager to fight off the foreign invaders. But the Afghan people didn't particularly welcome this influx of foreign fighters because those fighters had an agenda that didn't match the local wants and needs. (One of those foreign fighters (ironically dubbed 'Afghan Arabs' though they were not Afghan) was Osama bin Laden, who cut his teeth as a mercenary warlord fighting the Soviets in the Reagan-Bush years) Likewise, al-Qaeda in Iraq found a foothold early with promises of help but alienated the locals by fighting a war that didn't match what the people of Anbhar wanted. This led to Sunnis reaching out to the Americans for support. So the Americans went from fighting the Sunnis to fighting with the Sunnis against al-Qaeda and then on to supporting the Sunnis with the political conflicts with the Shia. Even for the Americans the game changed over and over again.
And of course it wasn't even that smooth: other fringe terrorists (better called 'anarchic' elements) sought to upset the transition by attacking the infrastructure (electrical systems, oil/gas supplies, roads, etc) thus keeping the new leaders (whether American or Shia or multicultural) from establishing any kind of effective leadership. Ironically, this terrorist activity kept the Americans around that much longer: USA couldn't leave while the place was imploding, even if USA couldn't keep the place from imploding. Though the new Shia power structure was eager to get rid of the Americans, even they acknowledged that only American military support could provide the necessary physical safety in which to create a new state. The turning point for the Americans was when the Sunnia turned against al-Qaeda and sought American support. This gave USA a new raison d'etre (at least temporarily).
Once President Obama removed the last of the American troops, it left the Sunnis unprotected, which led to the emergence of the militant elements in the Sunni community. What was originally the Sunni Awakening (or Anbhar Awakening) fighting against al-Qaeda insurgents (remember: al-Qaeda is non-Iraqi and thus local Iraqis were motivated to push them out), morphed into a 'South will rise again' mentality in the Sunnis who wanted to re-affirm Saddam's Iraq. Capturing Baghdad and restoring the Baath rule is increasingly unlikely, so the mission became to create some new Sunni stronghold that would cross into Syria (and perhaps Turkey, Jordan and Iran). This is called Da'ash (or Islamic State or ISIS or ISIL). Da'ash has pushed towards Syria rather than Baghdad (though Baghdad is still on their long range agenda) and has pushed against the Kurds in hopes of securing the lucrative Kirkuk oilfields.
As for the Shia, they have their own internal conflicts that have kept them for being the true leaders of Iraq. They can't agree on a Constitution or a polity. Some Shia support Iran, some do not; some are more sympathetic to the Kurds, some are fearful of them. Some want a strong relationship with USA, some (most I would guess) do not. Meanwhile, until they incorporate the hinterlands beyond Baghdad and those populations, the Shia don't really run much of anything. And it appears that at the top, they are just as corrupt as Saddam was. And likely to be just as brutal to their Shia brethren as Saddam was.
In the spring of 2010 came the election that could've united Iraq but the Obama administration ignored it choosing to back an Iraqi strongman instead. Maliki was the closest to being that strongman so they threw American weight behind him forsaking the Sunnis in the West, the Kurds in the north and the anti-Iran Shia in Baghdad. Joe Biden's plan has always been to partition Iraq into a Kurdish zone (presumably incorporating Kirkuk), a Shia zone (incorporating Baghdad) and a Sunni zone in Anbhar. But in the election of 2010 the multi-cultural Iraqiya party could have emerged as the leaders of the new Parliament. This was the true possibility of a multi-cultural Iraq.
But the Obama administration (under the tutelage of Biden) turned its back on that result, fearful that it would lead to more warfare. It may well have led to more warfare but that is that war that should've been fought! That is the conflict that USA could've thrown its military and moral resolve into that could've united Iraq as a people behind the notion of multicultural democracy. That conflict would've featured a righteous fight for democracy and plurality from the Iraqi people themselves. It may have been brutal and ugly but it would've led to a true outcome: either democratic principles that USA espouses or a true Saddam-style strongman that would've put the lid back on what George Bush unleashed.
Instead with USA handing power over to Maliki, we are left with neither democracy nor a strong leader with only minimal decrease in violence. Peaceful enough to avoid the slaughterbench of history, violent enough for no one to feel safe or steady. No one's in charge and it still leads to bombings. And still the fight simmers on with Da'ash seeking to fill the void.
The Kurds seem to be edging toward independence and while I am openly rooting for an independent Kurdish state, I am skeptical that actual borders would ever be drawn; but their assertion for independence should yield some autonomy.
Baghdad is still a political quagmire--and that is something of a success! The point is to push the violent factional tendencies into politics, a game that is more soul-sucking but less life-threatening. The general population is perhaps now starting to feel that life is better without Saddam. The Shia are suitably internally conflicted, the Kurds are coming into their own, but for the Sunnis the post-Saddam years left them with little faith in politics.
Which all leads to Syria...
(* This is all because the Americans left Mecca undefended. I still suggest USA will in time reconcile with Iran and they will return to being our main ally in the region rather than our main enemy. And the slow motion deterioration with continue with Saudi Arabia. And what happens to the two holy mosques? (Kinda sounds like Dungeons & Dragons, no?))
