"We can only hope," wrote Anne-Marie Slaughter, "we have gained a lesson in humility."īut the Iraq-istan syndrome could also spur a precipitous exit from Afghanistan, tipping the country into renewed civil war and instability. This "never again" mindset could mean a healthy wariness about wading into other countries' civil wars. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations." military is shifting its training and focus away from Iraq-style counter-insurgency toward conventional war against enemy countries. Americans increasingly want to leave Afghanistan come hell or high water. There's a wider backlash against anything resembling Iraq, especially counterinsurgency and nation-building. The core of the Obama Doctrine is "no more Iraqs and Afghanistans." The president is pursuing a narrative of extrication from Middle Eastern wars, and seeks to pivot to the Pacific-as far away from Iraq as possible. foreign policy in the coming years-for good and for ill. The two conflicts have created an "Iraq-istan" syndrome that will profoundly shape U.S. Americans want to avoid anything associated with Iraq and Afghanistan. Like a victim of post-traumatic stress, the country is also prone to the opposite behavior: phobia. According to novelist Robert Herrick: "It is as if the war had never been."īut while it's understandable that people would rather think about anything other than Iraq, it's hardly healthy to act like the war never happened. When the Civil War ended in 1865, newspapers "moved on to mundane events, as if the war had never taken place." Again, after World War I ended in 1918, people tried to blank out their memories of the fighting.
Following the intense focus on violence and bloodshed, people naturally want to change the subject. Temporary amnesia is quite common after America's wars. Obama said barely a word about Iraq, even though his presidency is, in many ways, a child of the war.
Prominent Republicans and Democrats were largely silent about the war, having seemingly scrubbed their memories of the worst debacle in recent American foreign policy-the eternal sunshine of the politician's mind. In Washington, the 10-year anniversary of the Iraq War prompted an outbreak of collective amnesia. Marine Corp Assaultman Kirk Dalrymple watches as a statue of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein falls in central Baghdad's Firdaus Square, in this file photo from April 9, 2003.
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