It was March 2003 and the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq. According to U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the coalition mission was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people. After 21 days of major combat operations, the loss of thousands of lives and the destruction of much of Iraq’s infrastructure, President Bush declared that the war was over. At the time, I had many misgivings and was happy that Canada had refused to participate in this farce. Remember, no weapons of mass of mass destruction were found and the war continued on for a decade. Saddam Hussein was subsequently found and hung by the interim Iraqi government. Iraq supposedly was supposedly on its way to discovering “democracy”— Western style.
Jump forward a dozen years, and where are we today? On April 30, 2016, thousands of protesters stormed the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad and took over Iraq’s parliament. A state of emergency was declared in Baghdad. President Obama’s plan for fighting the Islamic State (ISIS) was predicated on having a credible and effective Iraqi ally on the ground in Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. Instead, we have a corrupt and paralyzed government overseeing an Iraqi society fractured once again along ethnic and sectarian lines, with Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish elements fighting for power, oil and territory.
Meanwhile, Canada has increased its military advisors on the ground to help train Kurdish fighters in the north in their battle against ISIS. However, the problem is that the Kurds are really fighting to eventually establish an independent state, separate from the current Iraqi regime. Since ISIS is nothing more than a bunch of thugs who rely on fear and threats to maintain their occupation in parts of Iraq and Syria, fighting ISIS has become a “good feel” campaign for the West. Recent ISIS-inspired attacks in France and Belgium have given an added incentive to the campaign. However, there is the much tougher task of helping Abadi repair Iraq’s corrupt and largely ineffective government before a ground war can be won against ISIS.
Canada is caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, if it pulls out its advisors from Iraq, its allies and the hard-liners will argue that Canada is soft on terrorism. On the other hand, if it continues with military assistance to Kurdish forces, the Shiite and Sunni factions will accuse Canada of supporting the Kurdish independence movement. Iraq is becoming increasingly ungovernable and eventually the U.S.-led coalition will be left with overseeing the breakup of Iraq into separate political entities. For the moment, the common enemy in ISIS has forced some form of sectarian cooperation. If and when ISIS is effectively removed from Iraq, what will come next — another civil war? Most likely. Canada had better begin thinking about an exit strategy, sooner than later.
FROLITICKS 
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