I’m actually happy that our effort to train Iraqi police officers is a total failure and is being largely abandoned. It’s not that I don’t want the Iraqis to have effective and well-equipped police. And it’s not because I like that our government wastes billions of dollars on things it doesn’t know how to do. I’m happy because the Iraqis are basically telling us to take our tens of billions of dollars and get the hell out of their country. That will not only save us tens of billions of dollars, but it prevents us from reaping any kind of reward for invading and destroying their country in the first place. I’ve always been ambivalent about what some might call ‘success’ in Iraq. On the one hand, I didn’t want more people to die, whether those people were American or coalition soldiers or they were Iraqis caught up in the civil war. So, I wanted our forces to be able to reestablish some semblance of order. On the other hand, I didn’t want us coming out of this fiasco with the idea that it worked in some way. I didn’t want us feeling like it was something we’d ever want to repeat.
Therefore, I sought a kind of middle ground. I didn’t want our forces harmed or our national interests severely undermined. I didn’t want chaos or more influence for Iran. I didn’t want Iraq to continue in a state of ruinous violence. But I also didn’t want America to come out the other end of this with big benefits that might cause some to rationalize what we’ve done. It’s a tension between wanting to mitigate a disaster and still make sure everyone is clear that it was a disaster. A tension between wanting to avoid the full potential consequences of the calamity and wanting us to take our well-deserved beating.
In the end, that all translates out to hoping that we patch things up as best we can, apologize, and get the hell out. And, maybe, if we act like a decent ally for a while, we can have good relations with Iraq in the future. For Iraq to survive and prosper, they probably will need our help and support. But not if we haven’t learned anything.
