Almost four years removed from the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the United States finds itself in an unacceptable position.
Spectator to an intensifying civil war, combatant in a seemingly endless battle for security, and witness to the spread of anarchy in the face of a crumbling political order, our country's military exists in a state of purgatory.
Yet, despite the elusive nature of victory in this second phase of war (the first phase ended with the fall of Saddam's regime, which simultaneously ushered in the war for peace), it is critical that we continue to seek it.
And, this war, though a catastrophe born of American miscalculation and blind optimism, continues to pose tremendous opportunity for the advancement of U.S. interests and the global victory against radicalization and terror.
In hindsight, it is easy to say that the invasion of Iraq was a poor choice. The absence of weapons of mass destruction throughout the country, the influx of terrorists from neighboring states, the unraveling spirals of sectarian violence across the Sunni triangle, and the failure of our post-Saddam contingency plan all speak to this conclusion.
Nevertheless, both our overarching reasons for invasion and the reality of the situation demand our continued patience in this matter. Furthermore, they necessitate our continued military presence and national resolve in taking the necessary steps, whatever they may be, to ensure a victory palatable to American and Iraqi interests alike.
In looking at Iraq today, it is clear that we have not only created a momentous challenge for ourselves politically, militarily, economically, and diplomatically, but an acutely complex one at that. While proponents of ending our involvement in Iraq often highlight the subtle complexities of our predicament in the Middle East, alluding to our inability to effectively deal with each variable, they tend to overlook the obvious implications of withdrawal.
Morally, withdrawal is abhorrent as it reflects an American acceptance of civil war, political failure, oppression, and a descent into genocidal conditions. Though not sufficient, the coalition forces are the ever-weakening glue that holds together the fragile specks of security which Iraqi civilians still enjoy. Thus, to throw up our hands and toss aside our guns is nothing more than an act of complacency to disorder, terrorism, and murder. Surely, in a time in which we seek to rebuild our reputation abroad, this is not the image of ourselves that we wish to export.
Politically, abandonment of our responsibilities is a gift to our opponents in the region, namely the Iranian government, who embody the very forces that threaten the existence of civilization and prosperity throughout the world. An undemocratic Iraq necessarily equates to a Shia dominated Iraq. Though this domination could occur in several ways (via ethnic cleansing or the dissolution of the state into ethnically homogenous and independent entities), it is inevitable.
This inevitability would surely give way to an Iranian government enthralled with the opportunity to ally with a newly empowered and politically unencumbered mass of Iraqi Shia, in turn increasing its growing stranglehold on power within the region. Therefore, a premature withdrawal from Iraq, while understandably appealing, would merely strengthen a rising and nuclear ambitious enemy, ultimately proving to be a policy of the same strategically shortsighted character as the one that plunged us into war in 2003.
Militarily, a retreat would be just that - a retreat. This admission of defeat would embolden other adversarial nations to test our national resolve and strength. Moreover, a withdrawal would fail to allow our military the necessary time and experience needed for its adaptation to the type of insurgent warfare that we will be forced to face in future armed conflicts.
However, while these scenarios provide compelling arguments for a continued American presence in Iraq, it is the broad-based theoretical ideas behind the war's inception that implore our ongoing commitment to democratic progress in the country and in the greater Middle East.
In invading Iraq, we sought to depose a vicious despot, remove weapon technologies from a proven murderer's hands, and restore freedom of thought and political discourse to the intellectual hub of the eighth and ninth centuries. Of these three reasons, it is this third justification for war that is the most controversial and the most abstract. Yet, it is in the logic and sheer enterprise behind this reasoning that we can find the gravity of our responsibility in Iraq.
It is true that Iraq was not involved in the terrorist attacks that shook our country in 2001. It is also true that, while Saddam Hussein's regime was surely not opposed to al-Qaeda's siege on America, it was not a financier of terrorism to the extent that Iran and Syria continue to be to this day.
However, it was a nation of tyranny. It was a nation of oppression and fear. It was a nation holding on to antiquated isolationist tendencies, leaving it an outsider to an international community of economic, cultural, and technological exchange. And, it was a nation that, as we now see, was waiting to explode into fundamentalist and sectarian violence, with Saddam Hussein's brutality being the only thing holding a mushroom cloud of ethnic upheaval at bay. In essence, it served as a logical starting point for the exportation of hope into a region defined by similarly dangerous conditions.
Therefore, the success of democracy in Iraq is nothing short of seminal to the defeat of radicalized Islam - a fascist rhetoric that perverts the religion of millions and threatens civilization itself, from Mogadishu to Baghdad and from London to New York.
It is only through this extension of democratic institutions and liberal ideals into the Middle East, starting in Iraq, that we can isolate terror groups and quell extremist sects hostile to the realities of modernity, both of which are unspecific in their political goals, but dreadfully clear in their ideological ones. It comes as no surprise that these efforts at political reform will be met with violent, desperate, and intense opposition from those who rely on instability, intellectual subjugation, ignorance, and corrupt invocations of God. However, in their determination to defeat democracy, the fundamentalists acknowledge its power to undermine their insidious tools of fanaticism.
Thus, while we may find ourselves in Iraq unnecessarily from a strategic standpoint, we do not find ourselves there without purpose. We must recognize that the road to democracy in Iraq, or in any nation for that matter, is a shaky one at best - a fact that we as a once fledgling democracy know far too well.
We must understand the potential reverberations of democracy within Iraq as proof to those in the Middle East that democracy is not incompatible with their way of life, but instead represents an ideal framework through which prosperity and peace can be achieved. And we must avoid the partisan divides within our own nation that subordinate the long-term human implications of Iraq to domestic political maneuverings. Leaving the specific military and policy prescriptions to those privy to the vital information on the ground in Baghdad, one thing stands out as glaringly salient: The future of Iraq is the future of our fight against terror, and in neither can we accept defeat.
-Matthew Ladner is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major.
