Kori Schake on how America has moved beyond the debacle of the Iraq war

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the mismanagement of what followed significantly diminished American power, making our security and prosperity more difficult and costly to sustain.  They were mistakes of historic proportions.  Yet they were not America’s first significant foreign-policy debacle, nor the first time the United States has been a flawed beacon of its values. In many ways, the failures of the Iraq war mirror some of those of the Vietnam war, and have already had significant repercussions in domestic debates and international attitudes. But, just like Vietnam, they have not meant, and they do not mean, an end to America’s global dominance.

I joined the Bush Administration in 2002 as director for defence strategy on the National Security Council. I was brought in to help deal with the coalition because I had contributed to that work on General Colin Powell’s staff in the 1991 war, but I was not involved in the decision to go to war in 2003. What struck me most was the fear that was prevalent among policymakers after the attacks of September 11th 2001. There was a foreboding that containment of Iraq was rapidly being eroded and there was an anxiety that post-1991 inspections of Iraq had shown Saddam Hussein’s weapons programmes were further advanced than previously thought. The presence of American forces was fuelling radicalisation in Gulf states.

If containment of Iraq could have been sustained another year or two, the Bush administration might have chosen a different course. But in the “unipolar moment” a decade after the Soviet Union’s demise, with few restraints on American power, policymakers made frightened choices. The attacks on America were so recent and, not knowing the dimensions of the terrorist threat, we in the Bush administration made a number of damaging decisions.

The American military failed to anticipate an insurgency and failed to plan for post-war stabilisation. But the weight of failure rests mostly on civilian policymakers in the Pentagon, in Iraq, and in the White House. It was there that the most consequential decisions were taken, about whether to invade and about the size of the invasion and the occupation forces. Policymakers also made the decision to disband the Iraqi military, to set the timeline for coalition-troop withdrawals, to disengage from Iraqi politics and to ignore security concerns of regional countries and the Iraqis themselves.

The invasion increased Iranian state power in the region and sectarian conflicts among Muslims. It distracted resources from the war in Afghanistan, fractured European solidarity and placed an enormous burden on new NATO allies to justify their participation or abstention. On top of all that, it caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and more than 4,400 Americans.

It also crystallised a change in how America looked to the world. It called into question American willingness to restrain its own power according to its own rules.

What has been unique about American hegemony is the dominant power’s willingness to voluntarily constrain its freedom of action through rules, alliances, and international institutions.  Meaningful participation by small and mid-sized powers legitimated outcomes and mobilised voluntary contributions to collective action.  Americans justifiably complain about burden-sharing among allies, but no great power has ever had as much voluntary help in upholding the international order as the United States has had. That help has made the order cost-effective for American security and prosperity, and if it wants to continue as the dominant global force, it will have to do a better job abiding by its own rules and restraints.

Having admitted the egregious errors in Iraq that have diminished its power, it is important to say that American power remains formidable. The United States persevered in Iraq, even devised a successful strategy and committed the military forces to carry it out (though it did not do so in the essential non-military elements).  Americans proved less casualty-averse than expected. The American economy absorbed more than $800bn in direct costs from the war, and trillions of dollars in total costs, with remarkably little long-term economic effect. The country remains inventive, creative and dynamic.  Battered as it often seems, its underlying philosophy remains magnetic to people the world over.

As efforts to assist Ukraine’s fight demonstrate, American power is likely to remain determinant of the world order. The United States has organised 50 contributing countries to help resist Russian aggression and has itself provided $112bn of budgetary and military assistance. The existing order benefits most states and the alternatives are predation by revisionist powers like China and Russia, or passivity of order-respecting states without American leadership and underwriting of common endeavours.

The mistakes of the Iraq war cast long shadows over Americans’ willingness to shape the international order and other countries’ willingness to support those efforts. This is right and understandable. But what are the alternatives? China is increasing its influence in the Middle East, but it is not able to underwrite a different kind of global order that most states want to be part of. Set against the prospect of Chinese and Russian dominance, what America has got right and what it does right are likely to remain the organising principles behind international order for a long time to come. In spite of its errors and flaws, it continues to be the indispensable power. ■
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Kori Schake leads the foreign- and defence-policy team at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC.