The US-led War on Terror," by Shahram Akbarzadeh and Kylie Baxter. 2014
8 The US-led War on Terror
From Middle East Politics and International Relations - by Shahram Akbarzadeh and Kylie Baxter. 2014
Crisis Zone
Introduction
The events of 11 September 2001 had an unprecedented and ongoing effect on the Middle East. The United States, the world’s last remaining superpower, was attacked on its own soil by nineteen al-Qaeda operatives, resulting in the death of 3,000 civilians and 6,000 wounded. The operation was orchestrated by Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, who had received shelter from the Taliban in Afghanistan. After the attacks, US President George W. Bush initiated a significant change in America’s foreign policy, evident in his launch of the US-led ‘War on Terror’. This was guided by the principles of the Bush Doctrine, which emphasized pre-emptive force, America’s right to act unilaterally in the face of a perceived threat or in the pursuit of US national interests, and the right to utilize the full strength of the US military in pursuit of these goals. This doctrine provided the justification for the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.
Washington presented the removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq as important measures in the fight against international terrorism. The War on Terror was framed in the context of US and international security. In the aftermath of regime change, Washington pledged to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq that it would bring them democratic freedom and prosperity. However, a series of policy blunders impeded the creation of nationally inclusive systems of democratic governance. These policy missteps and the absence of a strong and representative central government facilitated the re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Sunni-led insurgencies in Iraq. This violent opposition against the newly established regimes ignited chaos and instability within Afghan and Iraqi society which remains a key obstacle to peace in the region today.
This chapter will examine the Bush administration’s path to war in both Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. It will then explore the challenges Washington faced as it endeavoured to fulfil its pledge to bring democracy to these states. Chiefly, it will discuss the flawed policies employed by Washington to assist in Kabul’s and Baghdad’s post-conflict national reconstruction. This will allow for greater understanding of how, and from what conditions, the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and the Sunni-led insurgency in Iraq emerged. This context is crucial to our understanding of the conflicts that continue to undermine stability in the Middle East.
Afghanistan: US responses to 9/11
In response to the 9/11 attacks, US President George W. Bush launched the War on Terror to oust the Taliban and eradicate al-Qaeda’s operational capacity. The US-led invasion of Afghanistan received broad international support. The reason for this was twofold. First, from the Taliban’s strongholds in Afghanistan’s southern and eastern provinces, Osama bin Laden had orchestrated two attacks against the United States: the 1998 US Embassy attacks and the 9/11 attacks of 2001. In response to the first of these attacks, the United Nations passed Resolution 1267, which required the Taliban to hand over bin Laden and cease the provision of sanctuary and training for al-Qaeda operatives in areas under its control. The Taliban’s failure to comply with this resolution and refusal to expel bin Laden provided the legal cover the United States needed to lead an international military assault against Afghanistan.
Second, during the Taliban’s rule over Afghanistan (1996–2001), the group was roundly condemned by the international community for its repressive measures against its own civilians, especially women. Hence, the Taliban did not enjoy international recognition as a legitimate regime, which facilitated international action to oust it. This absence of international recognition was important in the way events unfolded. The United States referred to the Taliban and al-Qaeda as ‘unlawful combatants’, not soldiers, so Washington did not have to declare war under Article 51 of the UN Convention. The Bush administration’s decision to move against the Taliban for harbouring al-Qaeda won wide international support. The global community saw the US response to the shocking attacks of 9/11 as legitimate, with many countries offering to join the action against the Taliban. On 7 October 2001, Washington launched Operation Enduring Freedom against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In less than a month (by 5 November), the United States, supported by an international coalition and anti-Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, removed the Taliban from power.
In the post-war national reconstruction period, the United States continued to play a major role. This largely stemmed from two considerations. First, there was awareness in Washington that America’s abandonment of the Afghan people after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 had thrown the country into a spiral of chaos and instability. Post-Soviet Afghanistan was deeply fractured and ultimately became a failed state. As such, it became a haven for terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda. Washington was determined to prevent a repetition of this scenario. Second, a central pillar of Bush’s War on Terror was the dissemination of US values through democracy promotion as a means to eradicate terrorism. From that perspective, citizens in stable and free countries would not be susceptible to violent ideologies. This position was aligned with the neo-conservative assumption that democratic regimes would align with – and ultimately serve the interests of – the United States. As such, after the Taliban was removed from power, Washington sought to steer Afghanistan on a path to democracy.
On 27 November 2001, the Bonn Conference convened in Germany under the auspices of the United Nations to negotiate Afghanistan’s post-war reconstruction and democratic transition. After eight days, the conference concluded with the Bonn Agreement, which was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 1383 and would serve as a blueprint for Afghanistan. The agreement stipulated the following terms: the establishment of an interim government; the creation of a constitutional assembly to formulate a new Afghan constitution; and the formation of a fully representative government through free and fair elections to be held within two years of the interim government’s formation (Maley 2006: 30–31). The United States lobbied heavily for the election of Hamid Karzai, a moderate Afghan Pashtun, as Chairman of the interim government. Moreover, Karzai had spent several years in exile in the United States due to his outspoken criticism of the Taliban. By 2001, Washington saw him as a man who could be trusted. Therefore, his election as Chairman of the interim government and subsequent inauguration on 22 December 2001 were fully in line with Washington’s agenda. However, the plausibility of Karzai running an effective presidential office was questionable. As Maley asserts, Karzai ‘had no particular claim to expertise in policy development or implementation and his exiled years in America had isolated him from Afghan society’ (Maley 2013: 259).
Resolution 1383 was unanimously adopted by the United Nations Security Council on 6 December 2001. It specifically noted the inalienable right of the Afghan people to determine their own political future. Moreover, it noted that the provisional arrangements established under the Bonn Agreement should provide the foundations for a gender-sensitive, broad-based, multi-ethnic and fully representative government inside Afghanistan. It also called upon all Afghan groups to implement the Bonn Agreement in cooperation with the Afghan interim government, which was scheduled to take office on 22 December 2001.
Afghanistan’s diverse, multi-ethnic population rendered the distribution of power an arduous task. In December 2003, the Loya Jirga (‘Grand Assembly’) convened to create Afghanistan’s constitution. While the ensuing constitution was praised for its advancement of human rights, it was heavily criticized for the system of governance it assigned to Afghanistan. It adopted a presidential system whereby the President would serve as both head of the state and head of government (Maley 2013: 259). This strongly centralized system clashed with Afghanistan’s traditional and localized system of leadership.
It is important to put this into context. The modern Afghan state is predominantly Muslim and comprised of various ethnic, sectarian, cultural and linguistic groups that form distinct micro-societies. Prior to the communist coup in 1978, Afghanistan did not have a centralized state system. Rather, power was dispersed across the country, with local chiefs exercising almost complete control over their territories. Afghanistan was thus traditionally characterized as a ‘weak’ state with a ‘strong’ society. Furthermore, the Pashtuns in the southern and eastern provinces represent the country’s largest ethnic group (42 per cent of the population), with the Tajiks from the north representing 25–30 per cent (Saikal 2014: 17), and the Uzbek, Hazara, Turkman, Nooristani and Aimaqui groups collectively making up the remaining 30 per cent. Karzai belongs to the Durrani Pashtun group, traditional enemies of the Ghilzai Pashtuns, from which the majority of Taliban members hail.
Essentially, the centralized presidential system sanctioned by the new constitution proved a serious stumbling block to the establishment of an inclusive and nationally representative government. The constitution was tasked with the ‘creation’ of a new state – a major challenge, as was highlighted by the outcome of Afghanistan’s first democratic presidential election, held on 9 October 2004. Karzai won the election with 55.4 per cent of the vote, but ‘no candidate received significant support outside of their particular ethno-linguistic group’ (Johnson and Mason 2008: 13). This proved highly detrimental to Karzai’s political legitimacy. Amin Saikal (2014: 71), a leading scholar on Afghanistan, suggests:
a more suitable alternative proposal was to create a somewhat decentralized parliamentary system of government, with the executive power resting with a prime minister and his/her cabinet to be drawn from the parliament that could enable citizens to connect with the central authority at different levels, from village to capital.
To ensure Afghanistan’s stability, UN Security Council Resolution 1386 was endorsed on 20 December 2001. It authorized the establishment of a six-month International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to secure Kabul, assist the interim government with rebuilding government institutions in a secure environment, and train the Afghan military. The United States deployed 10,000 troops, alongside 5,000 committed by its NATO allies (Saikal 2014: 23). The US troops were primarily focused on hunting down al-Qaeda operatives and Taliban leaders. As such, minimal resources were committed to the reconstruction of Afghanistan’s shattered government institutions and assisting local forces with the provision of security. This proved to be a grave miscalculation by Washington. Regional analyst Seth Jones (2006: 111) labelled it ‘among the lowest of any stability operation since the Second World War’. The consequences were devastating: within two years of the US intervention, the Taliban had re-emerged in resistance against the Karzai administration and the international military forces. Moreover, the inadequacy of the military resources and personnel dedicated to Afghanistan was compounded by Washington diverting its attention to Iraq in 2003. Throughout the remainder of Bush’s presidency, Iraq would take top priority at the expense of stabilizing Afghanistan.
US occupation and the Taliban insurgency
When Karzai entered Afghanistan’s presidential office in 2004, he was confronted by an increasingly potent threat by a revived Taliban-led insurgency. His administration was unable to provide security outside of the major centres of population, allowing the resurgent Taliban to challenge the authority of the central government and label it a puppet of the United States. In the eyes of the Taliban, the newly established government served the US occupation of Afghanistan and merited the same treatment as the Soviets. Hence, under the leadership of Mullah Omar, the Taliban orchestrated suicide bomb attacks and planted improvised explosive devices throughout the country. In 2004, the Taliban launched only 6 suicide attacks; this number rose to a staggering 141 attacks in 2006, which caused 1,166 casualties (Rashid 2010: 229). The police force, government officials, bureaucrats and schools were increasingly targeted by the insurgency. NGOs and aid organizations were attacked to deter foreign assistance in Afghanistan. Moreover, Human Rights Watch (2006: 40) reported on the Taliban’s distribution of ‘night letters’ which warned individuals and communities against working with the government or foreigners. These attacks undermined the ability of the central government to exert authority across the country and provide security. Equally importantly, they imperilled local and international attempts at reconstruction and development, activities which were vital if Afghan citizens were to feel they had a stake in the new system.
The resurgence of the Taliban was a blow to the United States. To confront the rising threat, the ISAF’s mandated powers were expanded by UN Resolution 1510 in October 2003. Under the terms of this resolution, NATO took over command of the ISAF and was authorized to extend its operations beyond Kabul. The ISAF defined its mission within three areas: conducting operations in Afghanistan to reduce the capacity of the insurgency; supporting the growth of the Afghan National Security Forces’ (ANSF’s) capacity and capability; and facilitating improvements in governance and socioeconomic development in order to provide a secure environment for sustainable stability. Hence, from 2003, US and NATO troops engaged in far more extensive combat operations in the Taliban strongholds in the country’s southern and eastern provinces. Consequently, the number of troops increased from fewer than 10,000 in 2003 to 20,000 in 2005 (Jones 2006: 113). This military commitment resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of ISAF casualties. Within a year, the total number of deaths had almost doubled from 52 in 2004 to 98 in 2005 (US Defense Casualty Analysis Service 2017). These losses and the resilience of the Taliban helped to turn US public opinion against the military campaign in Afghanistan.
By the end of Bush’s presidency in 2008, the security situation in Afghanistan was bleak. Karzai had failed to maintain control outside of Kabul and his administration was displaying signs of corruption, poor governance and weakness in developing and implementing detailed public policy. In the absence of a stable government, Karzai had effectively prepared the ground for the Taliban to flourish. As early as 2003, the insurgents had established ‘shadow governments’ and justice systems by assigning their own provincial governors, police chiefs, district administration and judges (Johnson 2013: 9). In 2009, Griff Witte reported in the Washington Post that, ‘from Kunduz province in the north to Kandahar in the south’, an increasing number of Afghanis preferred the ‘decisive authority of the Taliban to the corruption and inefficiency of Karzai’s appointees’ (Witte 2009). However, this support was not based on ideology but on the Taliban’s ability to administer better governance, such as running schools, collecting taxes and settling civil disputes. As Rashid (2010: 232) notes,
as long as the Karzai government failed to govern effectively or provide service and jobs to the people, as long as it allowed corruption and drug trafficking to take place under its very nose, the Taliban were winning by default. The failure of the government to provide quick and effective justice to the people only further helped the Taliban cause.
The failings of the US-backed Karzai government tarnished Washington’s policy of democracy promotion in the eyes of international and regional observers. The people of Afghanistan had hoped that international intervention would bring an end to the violence that had plagued their lives for decades. For example, in 2007, while insurgent attacks accounted for the majority of civilian deaths (55 per cent), 41 per cent were attributed to military operations conducted by the international coalition in support of the Afghan security forces (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan 2009: ii). This figure dropped marginally to 39 per cent in 2008. With an inadequate number of troops, the ISAF was forced to rely on airstrike campaigns against the Taliban, but
The excessive use of airpower by US forces antagonised the local populations, since bombs frequently killed as many civilians as they did Taliban fighters and the Taliban had become adept at using civilians as shields and hostages to prevent being bombed.(Rashid 2010: 229)
Furthermore, local frustration towards the international forces increased as reports highlighted
arbitrary arrests, extended detentions, mistreatment of civilians based on faulty information … [and human rights] abuses at several informal detention
The deadly anti-American protests that took place in Kabul in May 2006 in response to the deaths of civilians at the hands of the international forces challenged the integrity of the United States’ promise to bring democracy and freedom to the Afghan people.
There was a major shift in Washington’s perspective on Afghanistan with the election of Barack Obama to the US presidency in 2008. Despite the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the Bush administration had displayed a clear preference to focus on Iraq (see below): when Obama assumed office 20,000 US troops were stationed in Afghanistan, compared to 150,000 in Iraq (Belasco 2009). From the outset, Obama overtly criticized this focus on Iraq and pledged to make Afghanistan his top priority. He articulated his frustration during an electoral campaign address in 2008:
The Taliban has been on the offensive, even launching a brazen attack on one of our bases. Al-Qaeda has a growing sanctuary in Pakistan. That is a consequence of our current strategy. It is unacceptable that almost seven years after nearly 3,000 Americans were killed on our soil, the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large … if another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely come from the same region where 9/11 was planned. And yet today, we have five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan.(Obama 2008)
In adherence to this electoral platform, within the first year of his presidency Obama announced: ‘I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan … after 18 months, our troops will begin to come home’ (Obama 2009b). After eight years of fighting a war with no apparent gains, and devastating loss of life at the hands of the Taliban, there was finally talk of withdrawal, which was scheduled for 2012. However, while many international observers at the time saw this as a positive development, many Afghans were critical of Obama’s pledge. As Maley (2010: 86–87) notes:
this evoked recollections of the loss of US interest in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Soviet forces in February 1989, and left Afghans uncertain whether the dispatch of an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan that President Obama also foreshadowed in his speech represented a genuine attempt to blunt the insurgency or simply an effort to save face before withdrawal.
By 2010, the situation in Afghanistan had rapidly deteriorated. The number of US troops killed in combat reached its highest level since 2001, exceeding 400. Violent instability plagued Afghan society, with civilian casualties averaging 231 deaths per month (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan 2011: 57). Furthermore, the Taliban were increasingly targeting ANSF personnel. The resilience of the Taliban’s insurgency prompted many regional observers to question the viability of a military solution. Negotiation was thus put forward as a potential means of resolution. This fundamentally undermined Washington’s conventional method of conflict resolution, which rejects negotiating with terrorist organizations, but the gravity of the situation in Afghanistan seemed to merit such an approach. Hence, the Karzai administration, backed by the United States, pursued a negotiated settlement with the Taliban leadership based on their acceptance of the 2004 constitution and severing all links with al-Qaeda. In response, the Taliban ‘remained steadfast that a precondition for negotiations was the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan’ (Maley 2010: 87).
Obama began the withdrawal of US troops in 2011. The first 10,000 were scheduled to leave by the end of the year, with a further 23,000 set to depart in 2012. To ensure Afghanistan was adequately transitioned away from American dependence, Washington and Kabul engaged in a series of negotiations. In 2012, Obama and Karzai signed the US–Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement, which outlined the US role after completion of the withdrawal in 2014. The agreement stipulated that some US forces would remain in the country to assist and train the ANSF and target al-Qaeda operatives (White House 2012). NATO expected the ANSF to take the lead in fighting the Taliban. However, as Obama endeavoured to withdraw ground troops, his efforts were undermined by a series of high-profile Taliban attacks that resulted in an unprecedented number of casualties. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (2014) documented at least 8,615 civilian deaths and injuries in 2013 – a 14 per cent increase from the previous year.
By 2014, US–Afghan relations had reached an all-time low. The White House was determined to establish a bilateral security agreement with Karzai, yet in the lead-up to Afghanistan’s April presidential elections Karzai demonstrated a reluctance to engage with Washington. The Afghan leader went against US wishes and released several prisoners who posed a threat to the coalition forces and his office was accused of submitting false evidence to ‘substantiate US collateral damage’. In a show of frustration, the White House presented Karzai with two options: the United States was prepared to leave either 10,000 troops in Afghanistan to assist with security or none at all. In response, Karzai maintained that the signing of a bilateral agreement should be left to his successor. Subsequently, Washington began to devise a total withdrawal strategy. In May 2014, Obama announced that 9,800 US troops would remain in Afghanistan at the close of the year, a figure that would fall to 5,500 in 2015, in preparation for complete withdrawal in 2016 (Holland 2014).
On 5 April 2014, Afghanistan held a presidential election that resulted in victory for Ashraf Ghani. This outcome was greeted with widespread optimism as President Ghani promised to reinvigorate peace talks with the Taliban, which had been deadlocked since 2010 under Karzai’s administration. However, factional violence within the Taliban hampered Ghani’s efforts. In 2015, the Taliban expanded its control across the country, with the Afghan security forces proving powerless to contain the insurgents. This placed Washington in an extremely difficult position and forced the Obama administration to re-examine its plans for complete withdrawal in 2016. More than a decade after the UN intervention to remove the Taliban from power, Afghanistan’s development and future prospects were still highly questionable, and security remained a key point of concern.
Iraq: the road to war
After the United States invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, the Bush administration started to express a far more expansive foreign policy agenda. The National Security Strategy emphasized Washington’s ‘right’ to undertake pre-emptive, unilateral military action and the need to promote US values around the world (National Security Council 2002). This led the US military and political planners to consider expanding the horizons of the War on Terror. It soon became apparent that the Bush administration was determined to lead a ‘coalition of the willing’ to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power.
Unlike the path to war in Afghanistan, Bush’s desire to secure regime change in Iraq was widely challenged by major world powers and the international community. Afghanistan was clear cut: the ruling regime, which was already internationally isolated, was sheltering those responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, so the international community saw no other option but to remove the Taliban. By contrast, the case for invading Iraq was much more complicated and justified on the grounds of: the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction; Iraq’s failure to comply with several UN Security Council resolutions; allegations of links between Iraq and international terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda; and a perceived responsibility to liberate the people of Iraq and democratize the state.
Neo-conservative political thinking lay at the heart of the push to remove Saddam from power. In 1998, future heavyweights of the Bush administration, including Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage, argued that regime change in Iraq was in the best interests of the United States and the international community. They articulated this position in an open letter to the incumbent US President, Bill Clinton, which alleged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction that ‘could be used against our own people’, so ‘strong American action against Saddam is overwhelmingly in the national interest’. The authors suggested that this should take the form of a ‘systematic air campaign against the pillars of his power’ (Perle et al. 1998). Baghdad’s failure to comply with UN resolutions regarding Iraq’s alleged stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction provided the legal basis for this neo-conservative agenda.
Washington perceived Saddam as an unpredictable actor in the Middle East following the first Gulf War in 1991. In consequence, Iraq was designated a ‘rogue state’ and subjected to a draconian sanctions regime by the international community. The UN Security Council moved to strengthen its stance against the country by passing Resolution 687 in 1991, which ‘called for the destruction of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and established a weapons inspection team to monitor compliance with the directive’ (United Nations Security Council 1991). However, in 1998, this process failed completely as Saddam persistently obstructed the inspectors. In response, the following year the UN established the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) under Resolution 1284. This resolution explicitly linked the lifting of sanctions against Iraq with Saddam’s compliance with the new commission. But Baghdad once again repeatedly stymied and stalled the inspections team and was thus considered in breach of the resolutions pertaining to its weapons programme.
The neo-conservatives came to prominence with George W. Bush’s accession to the US presidency in January 2001. Moreover, the 9/11 terrorist attacks later that year provided them with a golden opportunity to shift their agenda from the periphery of US foreign policy to centre stage. Both Washington and London were aware of the role the United Nations could play in legitimizing military action against Iraq. On 8 November 2002, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1441, which offered Saddam a ‘final opportunity to comply with the disarmament obligations’ stipulated in previous resolutions, with specific reference to his breach of Resolution 687 (United Nations Security Council 2002).
The leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom both viewed Iraq’s continued intransigence as a dangerous threat to the international community. In 2003, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair declared:
at stake in Iraq is not just peace or war. It is the authority of the UN. Resolution 1441 is clear. All we are asking is that it now be upheld. If it is not, the consequences will stretch far beyond Iraq. If the UN cannot be the way of resolving this issue, that is a dangerous moment for our world.(Blair 2003)
Meanwhile, Bush attempted to conflate the actions al-Qaeda and the Iraqi state in a bid to rally domestic support for his War on Terror. He declared:
[Iraq] possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people. The entire world has witnessed Iraq’s eleven-year history of defiance, deception and bad faith. Some citizens wonder, after 11 years of living with this problem, why do we need to confront it now? And there’s a reason. We’ve experienced the horror of September the 11th. We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing, in fact, they would be eager, to use biological or chemical, or a nuclear weapon. Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun – that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.(Bush 2002)
However, the position advocated by Bush and Blair did not receive the support of other major world powers. In February 2003, a joint memorandum by France, Germany and Russia to the UN Security Council stated: ‘so far, the conditions for using force against Iraq have not been fulfilled … while suspicions remain, no evidence has been given that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction or capabilities in this field’ (United Nations Security Council 2003). Moreover, they concluded that Iraq was finally starting to cooperate with the international community.
Nevertheless, Bush pushed ahead with his war plans. On 17 March 2003, he stated:
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised … The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. America tried to work with the United Nations to address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully. We believe in the mission of the United Nations … On November 8, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations, and vowing serious consequences if Iraq did not fully and immediately disarm. Yet, some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq. These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it. Many nations, however, do have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to peace, and a broad coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the world. The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.(Bush 2003)
This statement was a tacit ultimatum to the United Nations. As Mohammed Ayoob (2003: 29) suggests, the US administration made it very clear that ‘unless the premier international organization agreed to act as an instrument of American policy it would be consigned to the dustbin of history’. Three days later, the United States commenced the invasion of Iraq amid the vocal opposition of many of the world’s major powers and against the express wishes of most Arab states. The Iraqi forces folded quickly in the face of the US ‘shock and awe’ campaign of aerial bombardment and President Bush declared victory on 1 May 2003, less than six weeks after the attack had been launched.
The US invasion of Iraq failed to unearth any evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda or his possession of weapons of mass destruction. Many in the international community criticized Bush over the quality of the intelligence on Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, which had been used to justify Washington’s decision to topple Saddam Hussein (BBC 2003). Out of this criticism arose the ‘war for oil’ argument, which pointed to oil as the primary motivation for regime change in Iraq. This argument was underscored by decades of US foreign policy that had focused on bringing oil-rich states into the US sphere of influence through programmes of assistance, support and friendship. Economic self-interest in securing the creation of friendly regimes most likely played a part in Washington’s agenda. Significantly, links between major US oil companies and individuals involved in formulating US foreign policy received much publicity. In the face of international criticism, Bush was forced to backtrack from his initial stance and articulate an agenda for Iraq that framed the United States’ removal of Saddam as a necessary precondition to liberate the Iraqi people and democratize the state. The neo-conservatives’ policies in Iraq revealed Washington’s failure to comprehend the delicate sectarian situation in that country, which proved disastrous in the aftermath of the military victory.
After Saddam was removed from power, Washington set about creating a new political order for Iraq. In May 2003, it established the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to serve as the occupation’s interim government. The CPA was placed under the leadership of a neo-conservative, Lewis Paul Bremer III. Central to Bremer’s policies was the ‘de-Ba’athification’ of Iraq, which was sanctioned eight days after Saddam was removed from power. The order aimed to eliminate the ‘Ba’ath party’s structures and to purge its top four ranks of membership’ (Bremer 2003). This effectively created a blank canvas on which Washington might rebuild the Iraqi state. The de-Ba’athification process was supported by a subsequent order – Number 5 – issued on 25 May, which established the Iraqi De-Ba’athification Council (IDC) to work closely with Bremer. The problematic nature of this relationship was twofold. First, all members of the IDC, including the chair, Ahmed Chalabi, were previously exiled Shia Iraqi nationals whom Bremer had handpicked for the job. These men subsequently played an active role in supplying Bremer and his neo-conservative advisers with information regarding individual Ba’ath Party members. As Benjamin Isakhan (2015: 22) points out, ‘the DBC implemented the CPA’s de-Ba’athification in a hardline and uncompromising fashion’. Second, many Iraqis criticized the de-Ba’athification process as it failed to distinguish between active Saddam loyalists and those who had been forced to align with him out of fear.
Ahmed Chalabi (1944–2015) was a Shia politician born in Baghdad, Iraq. In response to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s persecution of the country’s Shia majority, Chalabi founded an opposition party, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), in exile in 1991. During this period, the INC forged close ties with members of the United States’ neo-conservative movement and the Central Intelligence Agency. Under Chalabi’s leadership, the INC extensively lobbied the United States to end Saddam’s dictatorship. In the years leading up to the US invasion of Iraq, Washington relied on him and his supporters for detailed information regarding Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction programme, and the political climate in Iraq. This information has been widely criticized as providing an inaccurate assessment of the true state of affairs inside Iraq prior to the invasion in May 2003. The United States selected Chalabi to assist the occupation’s administration after the removal of Saddam. He then became interim Minister of Oil (April 2005–January 2006). Up to his death in 2015, he continued to play an active, yet sometimes controversial, role in Iraqi politics.
The consequences of this policy were devastating. Given the Sunni composition of Saddam’s Ba’athist Party, de-Ba’athification soon became synonymous with the ‘de-Sunnification’ of Iraq. This drove a sectarian wedge deep within Iraqi society to an unprecedented level. To understand the gravity of Bremer’s de-Ba’athification policy, it is important to keep in mind the Sunni and Shia divide in the Saddam era. Saddam Hussein belonged to the Arab Sunni stream of Islam. Consequently, he privileged Iraq’s Sunni minority at the expense of the country’s Shia majority, who make up over half of the population (the remainder, 32–37 per cent, is Kurdish, and predominantly Sunni). Iraqi’s Shia were excluded from key employment fields and repressed under Saddam’s rule: ‘Those active in anti-regime politics were murdered, imprisoned, tortured or driven into exile and those who stayed in the country increasingly realised that survival and economic well-being were directly linked to complete political passivity’ (Dodge 2007: 94). This led to high levels of discontent within Shia communities, which evolved into sectarianism following the collapse of his authoritarian rule.
Following a national referendum on 15 October 2004, Iraqi citizens took to the polls to elect a transitional national assembly on 30 January 2005. This resulted in a victory for the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), led by the Shia Islamist al-Da’wa Party. The INA nominated Ibrahim al-Jafari as Prime Minister, and he assumed office in April 2005. Thereafter, in December of the same year, the INA also won the general election for Iraq’s permanent 275-seat parliament and al-Jafari continued in the role of Prime Minister. Both of these elections were hailed as a success in terms of transparency and voter turnout. However, similar to the electoral experience in Afghanistan, people tended to vote on the basis of sectarian and parochial loyalties, and once again these trends were accepted, if not actively encouraged, by the United States. This experience deepened political divisions in the country. The Shia community dominated the central government in post-Saddam Iraq, while the Iraqi Kurds were granted autonomy in the country’s north. The establishment of the Kurdish regional government under the terms of the new constitution was an acknowledgement of the role Kurdish fighters had played in the fight against Saddam’s regime. These changes alienated the country’s Sunni minority, who, after decades of political dominance, suddenly found themselves isolated and targeted within the new state system.
The Iraqi al-Da’wa Party is a Shia political party that was established in 1958 by Mohammed Sadiq al-Qamousee and advocated the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq. Members of the group were arrested, imprisoned and executed under the secular rule of Iraq’s Ba’athist regime. Al-Da’wa was banned in 1980 and many of its members fled to Iran. Those who remained inside Iraq operated an extensive clandestine organization that re-emerged after the fall of Saddam in 2003. In the lead-up to Iraq’s first parliamentary elections in 2005, the al-Da’wa Party forged the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) as an electoral coalition with several other Shia political parties. The INA was successful and al-Da’wa’s secretary-general Ibrahim al-Jafari became Prime Minister following the first parliamentary elections in post-Saddam Iraq. However, tensions between al-Jafari, Washington and other prominent Shia leaders led to Nour al-Maliki, also from al-Da’wa, succeeding him in April 2006. Al-Maliki was subsequently accused of concentrating power within his own hands and exacerbating sectarian tensions inside Iraq. Consequently, he was forced to step down due to intense domestic and international pressure. In 2014, he was replaced as both Prime Minister and leader of al-Da’wa by Haider al-Abadi.
US occupation, Sunni insurgency and Shia militia
In late 2003, a Sunni-led insurgency was launched in opposition to the occupying forces and local Shia authorities. It comprised former Ba’athists, military personnel, tribal leaders and young and impoverished men from the Sunni-dominated western province of al-Anbar.
After the Iraqi Army was disbanded, most of the soldiers simply walked off with their weapons. This led to what Sultan Barakat (2005: 579) calls a ‘gun culture’, which enabled the Sunni insurgents to carry out attacks against the coalition forces and Iraq’s Shia population. The de-Ba’athification process and growing sectarian tension pushed Iraq onto a dangerous trajectory. Thousands of Sunnis lost their jobs, with the purge of Iraq’s civil service affecting between 20,000 and 120,000 individuals, while the dissolution of the army left more than 400,000 men unemployed. Statistics released in 2004 suggested that unemployment ranged from 40 to 60 per cent in al-Anbar (Malkasian 2006: 428). Consequently, the insurgents were determined not only to reclaim political representation but to acquire greater opportunities. Hence, the Sunni uprising against the central government in Baghdad was not about Islamism; rather, it was based on a shared sense of injury. As Ronen Zeidel (2015: 105) points out:
being dismissed from the army, the security services or government solely for being Sunnis … being held in secret detention centres and tortured on suspicion of terrorist activity; and suffering from discrimination in the allocation of resources. All these, and many more, advance a common secular Sunni identity, which is more relevant to Sunnis who are neither religious nor interested in the sectarian issue per se.
The Sunnis’ objectives were thus markedly different from those of Islamist groups, which also emerged in this fractured and dangerous political environment. However, they were all fighting the same enemy: the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad, which was backed by the United States.
The bulk of the fighting was done by Sunnis, especially in Fallujah, al-Anbar province. This city was largely populated by ex-Iraqi military officers with Ba’athist affiliations. Tensions erupted soon after the fall of Saddam, resulting in thirteen deaths and ninety-one injuries among Iraqi civilians (Malkasian 2006: 428). In response to the deaths of four American soldiers in Fallujah in March 2004, the coalition forces launched an offensive against the city, which made it a magnet for other Sunni rebels. It is estimated that some 2,000 fighters mobilized against the coalition troops, and the fighting spread across al-Anbar. Approximately three hundred insurgents and thirteen US soldiers had been killed by the end of the following month. Moreover, the coalition’s use of air strikes, artillery and tanks to combat the resistance resulted in the deaths of over five hundred civilians (Malkasian 2006: 437). This led many Iraqis to view the offensive as an unjust act committed by a foreign invader, and it marked a decisive moment for the Sunni insurgents, who proceeded to mobilize additional support and strengthen their hold over the city. The insurgents, alongside al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI; see below), orchestrated attacks within Fallujah against Shia communities, the US troops and Iraqi security forces. In the face of this upsurge in violence, the United States and Iraqi security forces, backed by Britain, launched a second offensive into the city in November 2004, recapturing it by the close of the year. This second Battle of Fallujah was one of the bloodiest engagements of the whole Iraq War. Official reports estimate that fifteen hundred insurgents and seventy US soldiers were killed, with hundreds injured (Dale 2008: 45).
The Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004 added further fuel to the Sunni insurgents’ anti-US campaign. Inside one of Saddam’s most notorious prisons, the degradation and torture of Iraqi prisoners by US service personnel was captured on film. The photographs were released on 28 April and then disseminated rapidly around the world. They were viewed as clear evidence of the United States’ long-standing willingness to disregard human security and dignity in the Arab world. The Bush administration attempted to mitigate the damage to its reputation, but with little success. In the eyes of many Iraqis, the US ‘liberators’ were irreversibly revealed as little more than oppressors.
The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) was established in 1982 as an offshoot of the al-Da’wa Party. It was founded by the prominent Iraqi Shia cleric Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, who called for the establishment of a Shia state in Iraq based on Iran’s revolutionary model. As a Shia organization, it emerged in resistance to Saddam Hussein’s persecution of Iraq’s Shia community. SCIRI was based in Tehran from its foundation before returning to Iraq after the fall of Saddam in 2003. While in Iran, its military wing, known as the al-Badr Brigade was established, which received training from Iran’s Quds Force. It played an active role in support of Iran during the Iran–Iraq War and in the 1991 Shia uprising against Saddam’s regime. In post-Saddam Iraq, SCIRI emerged as a serious player in Iraqi politics. In the lead-up to the country’s first parliamentary elections in 2005, it worked closely with al-Da’wa to form the victorious electoral coalition, the INA. However, al-Badr played an active role against the occupying forces.
Meanwhile, the emergence of various Shia militia groups exacerbated Iraq’s instability. Most Iraqi Shia supported the US-backed interim government, but the al-Badr Brigade and the al-Mahdi Army – armed wings of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Sadrist movement, respectively – overtly rejected the US occupation and condemned the Shia-led government for its acquiescence to Washington. The leaders of SCIRI and the Sadrists both called for the establishment of an Islamic government in Iraq. However, SCIRI differentiated itself from the Sadrists on the basis of its ties to Iran and consequent desire to replicate the Iranian model. It managed to gain a foothold in Shia population centres as it filled a vacuum in social service provision, which the new central government was unable to provide. The emergence of this militia group with formal links to the Iranian government signalled a new phase in Iraq’s post-Saddam experience. The reality of Iranian influence in Iraq was now an issue with which both the Americans and Iraqis themselves had to contend. Indeed, Iran emerged as the principal winner in the ill-fated US adventure in Iraq as the dynamics of sectarian conflict and the disempowerment of the country’s Shia majority offered the Islamic Republic an important new sphere of influence and a much stronger voice in regional affairs.
The Sadrist movement is an Iraqi organization led by the prominent Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The group’s ideological foundations were established by Muqtada’s father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1999. After the fall
In 2006, Baghdad and Washington faced a catastrophic upsurge in sectarian violence as both Sunni and Shia groups engaged in retaliatory and counter-retaliatory attacks which killed thousands of Iraqi men, women and children. The following year, a report issued by the United Nations claimed that 34,452 Iraqi civilians had been killed and 36,685 injured in 2006 (United Nations 2007). These figures were indicative of al-Maliki’s failure to enforce law and order, and the willingness of Iraqi militias to plunge the state into civil war. Islamist forces emerged as increasingly powerful actors in this conflict, most notably al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). An offshoot of the global jihadist organization, AQI was established as part of a resistance strategy against the US occupation of Arab territory. The specific dynamics of the Iraqi conflict, and the ready-made sectarian environment, led to a fusion of traditional al-Qaeda doctrine and overt sectarianism, in which the organization presented itself as the champion of the now-disenfranchised Sunni community. During 2006 and 2007, AQI waged attacks against Shia neighbourhoods, the Iraqi security forces and coalition troops. It capitalized on the lack of security and anti-American sentiment and managed to gain control over several key areas in the largely Sunni province of al-Anbar. Iraq’s Sunni community initially cooperated with AQI, but then largely turned against it as its brutal sectarian agenda became apparent. Furthermore, tribal leaders in al-Anbar perceived AQI’s implementation of Sharia law in the areas under its control as a challenge to their authority (McCary 2009: 44).
Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was established by the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2004. Al-Zarqawi was a veteran of the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union and established his Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad organization in Afghanistan in 1999. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, he fled to Iran before arriving in Iraq in 2002. After the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the central objectives of al-Zarqawi’s organization were to drive the US-led coalition forces from Iraq, reclaim Sunni political power from the Shia community and establish Islamic governance. In 2004, he pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and renamed his group al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The organization then orchestrated several attacks against US forces and inflamed the sectarian tension via brutal attacks against Iraq’s Shia community. Al-Zarqawi was killed in a targeted US air strike in 2006, and AQI later changed its name to the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI).
By early 2007, Washington was divided over how to address the deteriorating situation in Iraq. The unprecedented levels of violence and instability had virtually decimated Bush’s pledge to bring democratic freedom and liberty to the people of Iraq. His administration faced fierce domestic pressure to withdraw from a conflict in which dozens of American soldiers seemed to be dying for few tangible gains. The political mood was therefore squarely focused upon the need for an ‘exit strategy’. Inside Washington, the Democrats urged Bush to start winding down America’s involvement. In line with this, Illinois Senator Barack Obama presented the war in Iraq as one ‘that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged’ (Obama 2007: 4). Against these calls for a withdrawal, in April 2007 President Bush declared the deployment – or ‘surge’ – of an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq.
The following year, improvements in Iraq’s security situation seemed to indicate that Bush’s strategy had been a success. According to the United Nations, 6,787 civilians were killed and 20,178 injured in Iraq in 2008 – a significant decrease in relation to 2006 (United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq 2008: 2). In light of these improvements on the ground, Bush declared that ‘the surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around – it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror’ (Bush 2008). Observers attributed the decline in violence to the ‘Anbar Awakening’, a US–Iraqi tribal strategy, whereby Sunni tribesmen, in alliance with the United States, degraded AQI capabilities. This strategy consisted of US payments to Sunni tribesmen in exchange for their cooperation against AQI. By the close of 2007, AQI was seen as marginal in the Iraqi context. Despite these gains, however, many observers questioned the strategy’s ability to achieve positive results in the long term. For instance, in prescient terms, Steven Simon (2008: 58) argued:
this strategy to reduce violence is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state. If anything, it has made such an outcome less likely, by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni Arab tribes and pitting them against the central government and against one another. In other words, the recent short-term gains have come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.
At the close of 2008, on the express wishes of the Iraqi government, President Bush and Iraqi officials signed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which required all US troops to withdraw from the country by the end of 2011.
In January 2009, the new US President, Barack Obama, declared that Washington ‘will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people’ and asserted that all US troops would be withdrawn from the country within the next sixteen months (Obama 2009a). During this period, the level of violence in Iraq remained relatively low in comparison to the catastrophic years of 2006 and 2007. In the lead-up to the US troop withdrawal, Washington and Baghdad engaged in a series of vigorous negotiations to map out US–Iraqi relations in the post-withdrawal period. These negotiations culminated at the White House on 12 December 2011, when the United States pledged to continue its assistance to Iraq’s democratic institution-building and establish US-funded military programmes to train and equip Iraqi security forces without the presence of US military bases or troops in the country (White House 2012). On 18 December 2011, the United States completed its withdrawal from Iraq. After nine years in the country, it left behind a divided people, governed by a leader who displayed little interest in inclusive politics. With the escalation of tension, Prime Minister al-Maliki became a very divisive figure.
In the years that followed the US withdrawal, Iraq was gripped by widening sectarian divisions. The absence of political reform, which left the Sunni minority feeling ever more marginalized, fed into a surge of Sunni extremism. Al-Maliki was increasingly charged with exacerbating the sectarian tension. In the lead-up to the 2010 elections, he had disqualified over five hundred predominantly Sunni candidates on the grounds that they were linked to Saddam’s regime. This move was widely condemned as fear-mongering to deflect attention away from al-Maliki’s inability to provide economic prosperity to Iraq’s citizens (Mohammed 2010). Meanwhile, international observers were drawing attention to widespread human rights violations committed by the Iraqi security forces and pro-government militias against the Sunni community (Human Rights Watch 2014). As violence, mistrust and militancy amid sectarian groups worsened, the security situation became perilous. This was underscored by the re-emergence of AQI in July 2012, when it launched a brutal campaign against Shia neighbourhoods and the Iraqi security forces. The organization was able to mobilize considerable strength by capitalizing on the inefficiency of the government and exploiting legitimate Sunni grievances. This dealt a serious blow to al-Maliki and his administration, in the eyes of both Iraqis and the international community. The following year was the bloodiest since 2008, with an average of 650 civilian deaths and 1,000-plus injuries per month due to terrorism and violent attacks (United Nations Iraq 2017).
In late 2012, mass anti-government demonstrations had broken out in predominantly Sunni areas across the country. Thousands of Iraqis protested against corruption, gross human rights violations and the state’s use of arbitrary arrest, indefinite detention without trial and torture (Human Rights Watch 2014). In response, the Iraqi security forces attempted to quash the peaceful protests with lethal force. Here, it is important to note that opposition to al-Maliki’s regime was not exclusive to the Sunni community. Many Shia, including the Sadrists and the SCIRI, also rejected his monopolistic rule (Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies 2014: 5). In line with this, several prominent Shia clerics publicly condemned al-Maliki’s violent repression of the protests and urged the Prime Minister to implement meaningful reform. Notwithstanding these calls, al-Maliki continued to stoke sectarian tension until the end of his tenure. In the lead-up to the 2014 elections, he was placed under intense pressure to step down. Finally, he bowed to domestic and international pressure and relinquished power to another Shia politician, Haider al-Abadi, on 11 August.
The latter’s electoral success was widely celebrated. Sunni, Shia and Kurdish political parties all endorsed the new Prime Minister, as did Washington and Tehran. But al-Abadi took over in a period of deep national crisis. President Obama proclaimed:
this new Iraqi leadership has a difficult task. It has to regain the confidence of its citizens by governing inclusively and by taking steps to demonstrate its resolve. The United States stands ready to support a government that addresses the needs and grievances of all Iraqi people.(Obama 2014)
For al-Abadi and Washington, the formation of an all-inclusive government was crucial in the fight against terrorism. This view was grounded in the notion that inclusiveness prevents the marginalization of specific groups of citizens and thus dissuades them from turning to radical organizations in opposition to the state. However, this agenda was gravely challenged from the outset by the AQI, which established its so-called ‘Islamic State’ (discussed in Chapter 10). The Islamic State’s ultra-violent campaign and its capture of large swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014 complicated Iraqi politics and eventually prompted formal re-engagement by US forces.
Conclusion
US President George W. Bush presented the US-led War on Terror within the context of America’s national security. His administration argued that removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq was crucial to ridding the world of international terrorism. Washington also linked the War on Terror to democracy promotion: democratic governance as an antidote to tyranny and terror. Hence, after achieving regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq with relative ease, Washington was confronted with the task of transitioning these states to democracy. From the outset, however, the promotion of democracy was hindered by a range of challenges, many of which stemmed from the difficulties of applying this model of governance in deeply divided societies. The strategies employed by Washington revealed a failure to comprehend the delicate social fabrics of Afghanistan and Iraq. Implementing democracy from above through regime change unleashed major social and sectarian tensions which tore the two states apart from within.
Nearly two decades after the War on Terror was launched, the US pledge to defeat terrorism and bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan remains far from realized. Both countries are still teetering on the edge of becoming failed states. In the absence of a central government that can protect its citizens and provide adequate services, alternative contenders continue to emerge. These contenders provide services and form their own militias to protect neighbourhoods. In times of chaos and uncertainty, they are empowered as civilians are forced to turn to them for protection. Perhaps the most destructive aspect of a state verging on collapse is the security vacuum it creates. This dangerous cyclical pattern has endured in Afghanistan and Iraq since the United States toppled the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, and it is the devastating legacy of the US-led War on Terror.
