The American withdrawal from Iraq: ways and means for remaining behind*

What is it about?

This article examines the 2011 withdrawal of United States’regular military forces from Iraq in the context of Gen. David H. Petraeus strategy of the ‘surge’and coopting Sunni fighters against forces aligned with al-Qāʿidah through brokering tribal alliances and adding members of the majālis al-ṣaḥwah (‘awakening councils’) to government pay rosters. It is argued here that Petraeus’s strategy of the ‘surge’ was numerically insignificant and – even if he did order US fighting units back onto the streets – was only partly effective. Various factors and internal Iraqi dynamics played a more decisive role in the outcome of events that ultimately gave the Nuri Maliki government a free hand to work in unofficial cooperation with Shiʿite militias to leave major Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad depopulated or abandoned and which transformed the capital into a predominantly Shiʿite city. American withdrawal from Iraq was dictated by the need to redeploy US military personnel and material in Afghanistan, which coincided with a new rhetorical framework under Barack Obama for working with the Islamic world that diverged from George W. Bush’s categorizations under his ‘War on Terror’as well as the recommendations of the new May 2010 National Security Strategy, which set down the broad outlines for withdrawal. Despite the formal military withdrawal, a palpable American presence remains in Iraq through private security firms as well as a constellation of various agreements and deals concluded with mega-corporations and other, not to mention the largest US embassy in the world with its various support apparatuses. While the troop withdrawal of regular forces has taken place and permitted redeployment in Afghanistan, the ways which the Americans have devised to remain behind are many and their de facto presence, albeit in more ‘civil’forms, is still very much a ‘fact on the ground’.

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Why is it important?

This article examines the 2011 withdrawal of United States’regular military forces from Iraq in the context of Gen. David H. Petraeus strategy of the ‘surge’and coopting Sunni fighters against forces aligned with al-Qāʿidah through brokering tribal alliances and adding members of the majālis al-ṣaḥwah (‘awakening councils’) to government pay rosters. It is argued here that Petraeus’s strategy of the ‘surge’ was numerically insignificant and – even if he did order US fighting units back onto the streets – was only partly effective. Various factors and internal Iraqi dynamics played a more decisive role in the outcome of events that ultimately gave the Nuri Maliki government a free hand to work in unofficial cooperation with Shiʿite militias to leave major Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad depopulated or abandoned and which transformed the capital into a predominantly Shiʿite city. American withdrawal from Iraq was dictated by the need to redeploy US military personnel and material in Afghanistan, which coincided with a new rhetorical framework under Barack Obama for working with the Islamic world that diverged from George W. Bush’s categorizations under his ‘War on Terror’as well as the recommendations of the new May 2010 National Security Strategy, which set down the broad outlines for withdrawal. Despite the formal military withdrawal, a palpable American presence remains in Iraq through private security firms as well as a constellation of various agreements and deals concluded with mega-corporations and other, not to mention the largest US embassy in the world with its various support apparatuses. While the troop withdrawal of regular forces has taken place and permitted redeployment in Afghanistan, the ways which the Americans have devised to remain behind are many and their de facto presence, albeit in more ‘civil’forms, is still very much a ‘fact on the ground’.

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