Mission Accomplished

March 02, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE phantom at the feast as US President Barack Obama declared mission accomplished in Iraq over the weekend was George W. Bush. Mr Obama promised an end to US combat operations in Iraq by August next year, with all forces gone by 2011. A great deal could go wrong to delay this timetable. The tentative truce between Sunni and Shia Iraqis, and between the Kurds and everyone else, could collapse. The Iranian clerical regime, which hates the idea of people voting in elections where the candidates are not pre-approved for religious orthodoxy, could increase terror attacks across the border. But there are strong signs Iraq is emerging from six horrible years. Iraqis voted against religious candidates in last month's provincial elections, with Shia religious parties losing control of five of the seven provinces they previously ran. With Sunni tribal leaders reconciled to the regime, in large part thanks to US money, the risk of domestic terrorism is reduced. And Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's increasingly confident rule appears to enjoy popular support. The elections, considered a referendum on his Government, drew a 50 per cent turnout across most of the country.
And so it seems Mr Bush's war aims may be achieved after all. Saddam Hussein is gone. His wretched regime has been replaced with one that shows signs of becoming the first secular democracy in a Middle East Muslim state. And the American forces are going home. As Mr Obama told the Iraqi people at the weekend, the US "pursues no claim on your territory or your resources".
There is no denying that ordinary Iraqis paid a high price to be rid of the dictator and for the right to vote in free elections. At least 100,000 people have been killed, the vast majority at the hands of religious terrorists, and Iraq's economy remains the wreck it was under Saddam. Nor is there any argument that the Americans bear responsibility for much of the mess. Mr Bush's discredited defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, had no plan for what to do after Saddam's army capitulated, and controlling the resulting chaos was beyond him. But people who argued that the US invasion was all about stealing Iraq's resources and imposing an alien democracy on Iraqis who did not want to govern themselves are proved wrong. The Americans have done what Mr Bush promised they would. Everybody who believes democracy is universally understood and that all people have a right to it is in Mr Bush's debt.