Does the US have a duty to help the people of Iraq?

Before the war I argued that the US was not invading Iraq with the best interests of the Iraqi people at heart that it was doing it virtually purely in what the neo-cons saw as the strategic interests of the US. It was for that reason that I thought the invasion was ill conceived and likely to end badly.

I was told my many supporters of the war to ‘wait and see’ well I’ve waited and I’ve seen and it is they who are silent and absent on these forums not I.

But the thing is that once the US crossed that border and chose to act does it then have a responsibility for its actions does it have a duty to the people of Iraq?

The calls for some type of cut and run policy is growing in the US, even amongst Bush supporters and even amongst one time supporters of the invasion.

But where does that leave the people of the region that the US has done so much to disrupt? They broke it so do they now have a duty to fix it or pay for it to be fixed?

Or is this purely an American domestic problem, that since the reasons for going in were US interests and now those interests have shifted it is no concern of the people in the region what the US government does?

 

Do you consider it sound procedure to keep the the bull in the china shop while you or others attempt to clean and repair the damage?

Does "responsibility" to make restitution for the enormous damage perpetrated through the illegal invasion and occupation require the maintenance of US forces in a country they had no legitimate mandate to invade in the first place?

Restitution should and must be made, as must a full transparent investigation and war crimes indictments for all those who chose to disregard a plethora of international laws in the commission of this aggression. However, that should be financial in nature alone with the sovereign right of the Iraqi people to determine as THEY and THEY ALONE see fit, even if that is reached only through civil war.

Let us remember that many of our own nations only achieved stability through civil war and, especially in the case of my own, no third nations presumed to dictate against nor intervene to stop those internal hostilities.

All excuses used to maintain occupation ultimately demonstrate an underlying paternalistic, authoritarian right to determine how others should live. In most cases, and as evinced by the history of our nations' imperialist machinations in that region, such interference only generates new problems for which future administrations will again cite justifications for renewed intervention.

Withdraw, pay reparations, imprison our war criminals and cease from using aggressivistic (as opposed to purely defensive) militaralism as a foreign policy tool. No other proscription will achieve lasting peace.

 

As I’ve commented on elsewhere Iraq is not a nation it is a colonial construct, therefore any resulting ‘civil war’ I doubt would follow the lines you wish it to. Many of these people think of themselves as sunni, shia and kurd well before thinking themselves as Iraqis, which means they will look to and expect support from other sunni, shia and kurds elsewhere in the event of any conflict.

Remember that even after all the things Saddam had done to the Kurds, during the 90’s when the Kurds were involved in a civil conflict one of the sides asked for and received help from Saddam?

In fact from what I’ve read so far it seems likely that of all the factions the US is more likely to back the pragmatic Kurds. The thing is that the price of that partnership might involve the US backing Kurdish breakaway groups in Iran, Syria and Turkey.

A shia state in the south would find a supporter and ally in Iran and the Sunni middle could except help from many sunni countries.

In such circumstances civil wars don’t always have a decisive outcome and can cause death and destruction for many years as happened in the Congo. They also don’t always have very satisfactory conclusions, with regimes coming to power that bring some kind of order but are not the most pleasant such as the taliban in Afghanistan.

**

I always thought that the US presence in Iraq was provocative and liable to cause more problems than it solved. So some other solution needed to be found but I don’t find a cut and run policy that is likely to produce a long running and bloody civil war with unknowable ramifications a very acceptable solution.