War may be over, but doubts on Iraq remain

But as the flag of American forces in Iraq was lowered in Baghdad yesterday, what struck me more than anything else was the utterly unrepentant way in which politicians were still peddling the same old lies, disinformation and propaganda that have been the hallmarks of this near decade long folly.

Like many people throughout those Iraq war years, I listened to such bluster and bravado and found myself increasingly angered by what I heard. Unlike most people, however, as a reporter, I had the opportunity both immediately before and during the war to see and realise for myself how much of a bogus version of events the British and American people were being spoon-fed.

At the start of the war in the days running up to Operation Shock and Awe, amid reports of WMDs, I journeyed north-to-south across Iraq and saw little more than a few tanks by the roadside as Saddam Hussein's regime prepared to respond with its own so called Mother of all Battles.

In the years that followed, at the heart of the insurgency in places like Baquba, I watched as the military campaign took one step forward and two back in its efforts to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis.

With the US Stryker Brigade Combat Team in the badlands of Baghdad, I witnessed the house-to-house searches that characterised General David Petraeus's 'surge' operation that only further alienated Iraq's citizens. And, on more than one occasion across that same city, I accompanied US Medevac helicopter crews as they ferried the maimed – soldiers and civilians alike – from the carnage of countless suicide bomb attacks.

Let's not forget that more than 100,000 Iraqis and some 4500 US soldiers died in this war at a cost to the US taxpayer of $1 trillion.

Yet, throughout the course of such events, George W Bush, Tony Blair and their lackeys never stopped telling us of the progress we were making in building a better Iraq.

Yesterday, almost unbelievably, to my ears anyway, their counterparts were at it again, asking us to hold our nose and take another dose of blatant bilge.

"Everything that American troops have done in Iraq, all the fighting and dying, bleeding and building, training and partnering, has led us to this moment of success," insisted President Barack Obama, adding that what had been achieved was a "sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq."

Not true Mr Obama.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta was at it too, telling American troops that they left Iraq "secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people to cast tyranny aside and to offer hope for prosperity and peace to this country's future generations."

Not true Mr Panetta.

All this just doesn't wash anymore, not least with countless Iraqis. On a daily basis they still have to contend with an insurgency, insecurity, corruption, shortages of electricity and a broken infrastructure. For them there is precious little to show for a military and political campaign that was supposed to herald a new Middle East and ensure Washington had a strategic ally in this oil-rich region. Frankly, none of this could now be further from the truth.

Whatever the Obama administration might say, there is little doubt we are now moving toward a reckoning with the consequences of the war in Iraq. That reckoning concerns the potential for a massive shift in the balance of power in the region, with Iran manoeuvring from a fairly marginal role to a potentially dominant one. As one blogger on a Middle East website put it colourfully the other day, 'the giant sucking sound that accompanies the departure of US troops is the vacuum created that some other power is going to fill'.

No prizes for guessing who that power will be. For a long time now Tehran has been preparing for the US withdrawal. While it's probably overdoing it to say Iran will dominate Iraq, few doubt Tehran will call many of the shots in Baghdad to the extent of being able to block Iraqi initiatives Iran opposes.

To that end, Iraqi politicians' calculus must now take into account the proximity of Iranian power and the increasing distance and irrelevance of American political and military clout. And all this precisely at the moment when the crisis in neighbouring Syria threatens to upset the region's sectarian and ethnic balance, potentially pitching Sunni Muslims against Shia.

In this minefield of shifting dynamics, Iraq all too easily could again become a battlefield, this time one fought over by the Sunni powers to the north and south, and Iranian-led Shias to the east.

Meanwhile, for Washington itself, this poses a whole new set of geopolitical and strategic problems and basically boils down to three unpalatable choices.

It can accept Iran's growing influence in Iraq and the wider region, and try to live with what emerges. Alternatively, it can make a painful and no doubt costly deal with the Iranian regime. Lastly, it can resort to type and go to war with Tehran. Already the signs are all there the United States, along with its regional ally, Israel, is beginning to make countermoves to the Iranian threat. Just where this might lead is anybody's guess but should be cause for real concern.

And there you have it, Mr Obama, Mr Panetta. Johnny may indeed have come marching home for now. But let's not delude ourselves that getting out of the Iraq mire was a "moment of success" and that what was left behind offers "hope for prosperity and peace to the country's future generations".

Just for once why not tell the truth and admit that it may not be all that long before Johnny finds himself marching in that same direction all over again.

Oh, but I forgot, a presidential election beckons, doesn't it?