December 15, 2011

Almost nine years after the first American tanks began the illegal invasion, today the Pentagon declared an official end to its mission in Iraq, closing a troubled conflict that helped reshape American politics, bankrupt both countries, and leave a bitter legacy of anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta marked the occasion with a speech in a fortified concrete courtyard at the Baghdad airport. The Bush administration began the war in 2003 to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. When that pretext was shown to be a conscious lie, the war was re-cast as an effort to bring democracy to the Middle East, another pretext that rang hollow. Iraq still has the second largest oil reserves in the world. All along, the war was about stealing Iraq’s oil. The ceremony today marked an uneasy moment of closure for the United States, with no clear sense of what has been won. But it is clear what has, so far, been lost: according to Pentagon statistics, as of last Friday, the war had claimed 4,487 American lives, with 32,226 Americans wounded in action. The number of Iraqi deaths is unclear, but it is in the hundreds of thousands, and all indications are, that number will continue to grow. Is this a great country, or what?