Iraq War's lessons for Syria

The Iraq war holds important lessons for the ongoing civil war in Syria. But with some calling for greater U.S. involvement to tackle the threat

posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), one thing should be clear from the U.S. intervention in Iraq, namely that state institutions, and the armed forces in particular, really matter. After all, the disbanding of the Iraqi armed forces had wide-ranging repercussions that continue to this day.

Some maintain that the Iraqi army had already disintegrated by the time U.S. forces reached Baghdad, and the United States simply formalized what had already happened on the ground. It was unrealistic, they suggest, to call back the old army, which had been loyal to Saddam, had opposed the U.S. invasion, and would not have fought for the Occupation Authority.

Zalmay Khalilzad

Critics, however, respond that the U.S. military had, in fact, demanded that the Iraqi army go home and stay out of the fight. Had the United States instead invited them to return and offered to pay them, many may well have returned and assisted with restoring security instead of joining the insurgency. The decision not to pay soldiers immediately after the invasion, they note, was among the most significant reasons why officers and soldiers felt alienated by the new government.

Either way, as Iraqi state institutions collapsed, the U.S. could not prevent the emergence of a dangerous power vacuum. Shiite-Islamist militias -- many with strong ties to Iran -- exploited that vacuum, and used it as an opportunity to take revenge on the Sunni Arab officers they had fought in the Iran-Iraq War and against the broader Sunni elite. This elite found itself besieged not only by Iranian proxies, but also by a Shiite-dominated political committee that, as part of the Occupation Authority's de-Baathification decree, oversaw their purging as former Baathists. Even technocrats and teachers with no blood on their hands were included.

As a result, these disaffected Sunni Arabs, supported by some other Arab states, organized themselves into insurgent groups. These conditions also gave rise to al Qaeda in Iraq, which would itself become the progenitor of ISIS.

True, U.S. adjustments brought a relative degree of stability to Iraq by 2011, and the United States made political progress by transferring sovereignty to Iraq, promoting a national compact and power-sharing between Iraq's communities, and reaching out to Sunnis.

But the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2011 created a new vacuum even as the Iraqi army again disintegrated, allowing Sunni extremists and terrorists and Shia militias to make major inroads. Fast forward to today, and it is clear that as he grapples with the legacy of sectarian and authoritarian policies under his predecessors, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's new Iraqi government has had limited success in containing the sectarian conflict.

So, what does this all mean for Syria? Unfortunately, Syria is well on its way to repeating the Iraqi experience.