US Involvement in Iraq

In January 2013, I attended the American Economics Association meetings in Washington DC. This is the largest gathering of economists in the US and many of my grad school friends were there, so one night we had a chance to go out to dinner as a group. Eventually, the topic moved to the build up towards war in Iraq. I was shocked at how many of my generally left leaning grad school friends were in support of going to war. I asked them the question that economists often ask about policy decisions, "and then what?" What was going to happen after we defeated Saddam Hussein? How long were we going to be in the region? How much was this going to cost in total in terms of US and Iraqi lives, budgetary expenditure and US goodwill abroad?

The answers to these questions before the war were generally that the US would be out of there quickly, that Iraqi oil would pay for the war (so it wouldn't cost us a dime) and that creating democracy in the Middle East would be ultimate outcome. At the time, my estimate was that we would be in Iraq a minimum of 10 years and more likely 15, that oil markets and production are too unstable to guarantee any kind of flows and that it was going to be bloody and unpredictable in terms of aftershocks.

When the last combat troops left in December 2011, I thought that maybe I was too pessimistic, though the continued war told me that it was a political decision and not a military one. Iraq was still too unstable to leave, but we decided (as Americans) that there was nothing we could do, so we left. This last week, we have started to militarily engage once again. The tragedy in Sinjar Mountain needs a response. So did the Syrian civil war and so does the continued turmoil in Libya.

There are no easy solutions in the region. The hubris of the American people for starting this cascade of events should serve as a reminder to all future administrations.