Afghanistan is Not Enough. President Biden Should End All Forever Wars in the Middle East
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By: Edward Ahmed Mitchell & Ismail Allison, CAIR National
During a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi last week, President Biden announced the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, a move that had initially been agreed upon by the Iraqi and American governments in April. After 18 years of bloodshed, destruction, and the complete unravelling of Iraqi society,
While U.S. forces will no longer be in a combat role, Biden said that they would remain in Iraq to “continue to train, to assist, to help, and to deal with ISIS as it arises.” With 2,500 American soldiers currently in the country and no indication that this number will be significantly decreased, this “pullout” is clearly different from the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
The re-designation of U.S. forces as ‘advisors’ will not make their presence any less of a destabilizing factor, nor will it make them any less of a target to America’s adversaries in the region. With boots on the ground, America remains at risk of being pulled right back into another forever war.
The results of such military interventions in the Middle East have been disastrous. Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives have been lost, nations have been destroyed, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent, and barely one objective has been met.
In Afghanistan, the Bush Administration invaded with the objectives of destroying Al Qaeda, removing the Taliban from power and establishing a stable, unified government that would not pose a threat to the United States. Although Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was essentially wiped out and forced to flee into neighboring countries, the Taliban has been resurgent, fueled by opposition to American occupation and the dysfunction and corruption of the internationally recognized government. In the face of a conflict without a military solution, a withdrawal agreement was signed between America and the Taliban in 2020.
The toll that 20 years of conflict has had on the Afghan people has been brutal. Brown University’s Cost of Wars project estimates that as of April, 47,245 civilians have been killed. Another 24,099 were killed in the spillover conflict in Pakistan.
Cost of Wars estimates that 2,442 U.S. Military personnel and 3,936 contractors have been killed in both Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001. A Department of Defense casualty report says that as of July 19, 20,149 have been wounded. The war has cost America over $2.261 trillion.
In Iraq, which the Bush Administration invaded based on the false claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, most American goals have likewise remain unachieved. Instead of liberating Iraq and building a democracy, the invasion and occupation sparked an insurgency, followed by a sectarian civil war, that nearly led to the country’s total collapse.
It is difficult to calculate the total number of civilians killed in Iraq, and estimates vary. Iraqi Body Count, a project Since 2003, estimates that between 185,761 and 208,877 Iraqi civilians have been killed in the violence. 24,865 civilians were killed in the first two years of the war alone.
According to the Department of Defense, the first part of America’s involvement in Iraq from 2003 to 2010, left 4,418 U.S. military and civilian personnel dead and 31,994 wounded. Its successor Operation New Dawn, which lasted from 2010 until the U.S. withdrawal in 2011, left 74 dead and 298 wounded. Operation Inherent Resolve, which was launched in the wake of large ISIS territorial gains in Iraq, left 107 dead and 269 wounded. The war is estimated to have cost nearly $2 trillion as of February 2020.
It is obvious that American military interventions in the Middle East have failed. From North Africa to Pakistan, objectives have been unmet, innocent lives have been lost, nations have been destroyed, and billions upon billions of dollars have been wasted. If Iranian-backed militias continue their attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq — which they ramped up in the aftermath of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani last year — the risk of escalation will rise and the possibility of a re-redesignation will become more likely.
Considering these facts, the question arises — why are our nation’s military forces still in Iraq, and for that matter anywhere in the Middle East? What is Washington seeking to achieve that hasn’t already been proven impossible?
With tensions with Iran simmering, it seems American troops who remain in the region are little more than sitting ducks. Perhaps the powerful defense industry and war profiteers, the only ones who have benefitted from America’s forever wars, like the idea of having a potential future Fort Sumter in a war with Iran.
While it may be in the interests of some policymakers to maintain an American military presence in the Middle East, it is certainly not in the interests of the American people, who have time and again expressed their opposition to further engagement. It is not in the interests of the peoples of the region, who have suffered for decades under bombs and drones. It is not in the interest of American soldiers, who are more likely to commit suicide upon returning from Middle East battlefields than they are to die in combat.
The time has come to end all of America’s forever wars — and that cannot happen as long as U.S. forces remain in the Middle East.
