Time Before Iraq Invasion Holds Lessons for Fight Against ISIS
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Version 0 of 1. LONDON — The adversary is different but, as war talk spills once more through the corridors of power — this time directed against the Islamic State — it is tempting to recall the fervor of earlier days, before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, as much for the lessons learned as for those that have been ignored. Then, driven by the urge to behave as America’s biggest and most enthusiastic ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain joined President George W. Bush as a junior partner to topple Saddam Hussein in the seeming belief that democracy would emerge as despotism’s natural heir — a notion that finally foundered in the aftermath of the Arab Spring in 2011. The examples of Libya, Egypt and Syria seemed to show that Western support for the would-be successors to the region’s dictators, from Tripoli to Cairo to Damascus, had helped sow the seeds of mayhem. That mayhem, familiar from post-invasion Iraq, spawned the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL, whose supporters have carried the fight to Europe with the attacks in Paris and the discovery of a nexus of Islamic militancy in Belgium. The result has been a near-perfect storm for policy makers already challenged by the inexorable flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing conflict in Syria and elsewhere. These days, another British prime minister, David Cameron, is seeking political support to join the American-led air campaign in Syria — action that Parliament ruled out in 2013 during an earlier crisis, limiting Britain’s formal role to attacking targets in Iraq. Perhaps the most significant change since 2003 is that Britain, like the United States, has lost all appetite for the deployment of its own conventional ground forces — “boots on the ground,” in political shorthand — even as Western leaders argue that air power alone is not enough to defeat the Islamic State. Also, the constellation of alliances and perceived national interests has shifted over the past 12 years. France and Russia, both opponents of military action in 2003, are now flying sorties over Syria — albeit with different targets in their bombers’ sights. Spurred by the bloodletting in Paris, France has proved a particularly zealous ally of the United States, relegating Britain from its long-cherished position as Washington’s leading partner. That reversal alone may sway British lawmakers to approve strikes against the Islamic State in Syria, if only to restore the trans-Atlantic bond. Compared with 2003, the diplomatic architecture has shifted. Then, the United Nations Security Council withheld its imprimatur. This time, it has urged member states to take “all necessary measures” against the Islamic State. That formulation, said Dan Jarvis, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party, “gives us a compelling mandate to act — legally and morally.” If Britain is already bombing targets in Iraq, he wrote in The Guardian, there is “no logic” in not attacking the Islamic State in Syria. Since Russian warplanes began attacking targets in Syria, the issue has become ever more entwined with the competing ambitions of Moscow and the West. And when Turkey downed a Russian warplane along its border with Syria this week, the action exposed the perils of aerial warfare conducted by political and military rivals pursuing competing strategies in the tinderbox of the Middle East. Mr. Cameron has promised to seek Parliament’s approval when there is broad support for British planes to join the fray in those contested skies. “The experience of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya has convinced many of our own people that the elite’s enthusiasm for endless military interventions has only multiplied the threats to us — while leaving death and destabilization in their wake,” said Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the divided Labour Party. When its lessons are used to buttress opposing arguments, history is an ambiguous teacher. “Of course we must learn from the past,” said Mr. Jarvis, a former British Army officer and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, “but we must not become prisoners of it either.” |