LINDA ROBINSON is a Senior Researcher at the RAND Corporation and the author of Tell
Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq.162 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
Winning the Peace in Iraq
Don’t Give Up on Baghdad’s Fragile
Democracy
Linda Robinson
F
or Americans who came o age near the turn o the current
century, the war in Iraq was a generation-de¿ning experience.
When the United States invaded the country in 2003, toppling
the government o Saddam Hussein in a matter o weeks, many saw
the war as a necessary or even noble endeavor to stop the spread o
weapons o mass destruction, which Saddam was allegedly develop-
ing—and bring democracy to parts o the world that had long suered
under the weight o tyranny.
By the time U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011, such illusions
had been shattered. The conÇict had cost the United States $731 bil-
lion, claimed the lives o at least 110,000 Iraqis and nearly 5,000 U.S.
troops, and done lasting damage to Washington’s international repu-
tation. The invasion had sparked a virulent insurgency that was only
barely quelled by 2011, and which resurfaced following the U.S. with-
drawal, when a vicious jihadist group calling itsel the Islamic State
(or ) seized an area the size o Iceland in western Iraq and eastern
Syria. Most Americans who have been to Iraq remember car bombs
and streets lined with ten-foot-tall concrete blast walls. For those who
have never been, Iraq is less a place than a symbol o imperial hubris—
a tragic mistake that they would prefer to forget.
Yet Iraq today is a dierent country. Few Americans understand
the remarkable success o Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. cam-
paign to defeat . Some 7,000 U.S. troops (and 5,000 more from 25
countries in the anti- coalition) provided support to Iraq’s army
and local partners in Syria, who fought to free their towns, cities, and
provinces from ’ brutal grip. By the time these U.S.-backed forcesReturn to Table of Contents