Juan Cole: Last US Combat Units withdraw from Iraq

[ProSense]

Last US Combat Units withdraw from Iraq

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Juan

The last US combat convoy left Iraq on Thursday, rather some time after George W. Bush declared an end to combat operations in Iraq in May, 2003.

Of course, this flat statement is not entirely accurate. The remaining 50,000 troops are viewed as trainers and logistics support to the Iraqi government. But they include special operations units, helicopter gunship crews, and other war fighters who are still going to be engaged in combat but will not be categorized as being in Iraq for that purpose. Iraq has no air force to speak of, and the US will be providing the air support until at least 2018.

But it would be wrong to see Thursday’s landmark as meaningless. It is a little bit immature to demand an all or nothing military situation. What Obama has done is stay true to US commitment to get combat units out by September 1. That should reassure Iraqis– and Arabs and Muslims in general — about US intentions.

That consideration is the true significance of Thursday’s last convoy. It is a symbol of a turnaround in US policy, a repudiation of the Bush administration doctrine of preemptive war. “Preemptive war” is a euphemism for the rehabilitation of aggressive war, which the world community attempted to abolish in the United Nations charter. While many blame Obama for escalating the Afghanistan War, that war at least grew out of the al-Qaeda attack on US soil, which was planned out in Khost and Qandahar, and it has the backing of the UN and of NATO, which invoked article 5 of its charter (an attack on one is an attack on all).

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The US has fought aggressive wars before, but none so starkly illegal as Iraq. Saying it was wrong and illegal is not the same thing as saying that no good was accomplished. Reality is complex. The Saddam Hussein regime was brutal and even at times genocidal. In principle, the regime could have been removed by the UN Security Council under the Genocide Convention. But the Bush administration did not pursue the war as an element of international legality or legitimate institutions. It pursued the war as a means of undermining the UN and international law, and asserting the extra-legal prerogatives of the then world’s sole superpower.

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Facts and Figures on Drawdown in Iraq

[ProSense]

1. No comment? n/t

[gratuitous]

2. There was an al-Qaeda attack on US soil?

Huh. Cole's usually pretty careful, but I don't know that I've ever seen a conclusive investigative report that the September 11 attacks were "planned out in Khost and Qandahar," or that al-Qaeda was involved in them. Certainly the Bush administration promised a white paper that would explain it all in great detail, but that little matter seemed to get lost in the rush to have Colin Powell go to the UN with his vials of not-poison and his drawings of not-weapons to gin up a casus belli.

I'm not endorsing any particular conspiracy theory, but at this time, I have to lump the notion that al-Qaeda was the sole actor in the September 11 attacks as just another conspiracy theory among several.

[ProSense]

3. "the notion that al-Qaeda was the sole actor"

So you agree they helped?

[gratuitous]

4. Nope, not even conceding that

Not without seeing some kind of, what do those legal-beagle types call it? Oh yes, "evidence."

[mzmolly]

5. "It is a little bit immature to demand an all or nothing military situation."

Indeed.