The United States invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003, to enforce UN resolutions requiring Iraq to divest itself of “weapons of mass destruction,” and to effect “regime change” because the country’s authoritarian leader, Saddam Hussein, had sometimes waged war on his own citizens, notably ethnic Kurds.

Congress had not passed a declaration of war, as required by the Constitution, but instead had passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. The resolution authorized President Bush to use the Armed Forces of the United States "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" in order to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq." (Emphasis added.)

Have you noticed that whenever the UN passes a resolution, it is mostly Americans who die to enforce it?

Saddam’s military forces were quickly overrun (with most of his soldiers apparently deserting and going underground) and Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003 and executed in December 2006.

President Bush delivered a highly publicized “Mission Accomplished” speech on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. However, it is now over five years since that speech and 4,134 Americans have died in Iraq, all but 139 of those occurring after Bush delivered his speech. Which raises perhaps the “dumbest” observation since the little boy proclaimed that the emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes: If our mission was accomplished in Iraq with only 139 deaths, for what purpose have the additional 3,995 died?

Supposedly, the reason for the continued U.S. presence is to stabilize the country until all of the feuding factions (Shiites, Sunis, Kurds, ethnic Turkmens. etc.) can learn to live in piece and create a “democracy.”

With dozens of autocratic governments around the world either oppressing ethnic minorities or else failing to prevent two or more tribes from killing each other at will, exactly why the situation in Iraq is unique enough to justify the loss of over 4,000 Americans is a mystery that remains to be explained. Especially, since the Iraqis, themselves, have shown so little resolve to settle their own problems, as was shown on August 6th. On that day, members of Iraq’s parliament adjourned for their summer vacation without passing an election law that would have allowed provincial elections to be held in October. Instead, the earliest elections will be held next year. Until the elections are held, ongoing political chaos in Iraq is all but guaranteed, though even with the elections, no one can promise when the violence and killing will end.

The New York Times reported that the official U.S. response to the parliamentary adjournment, issued by a spokesman at the American Embassy in Baghdad, was: “The U.S. regrets that the Iraqi Parliament today adjourned without finishing its work on a local elections law. Parliamentarians had made great strides toward finishing a closing agreement on some of the more contentious issues.” The areas of contention revolve mostly around how the interests of Iraq’s several ethnic groups, and even political rivals, will be protected once elections are held.

It is interesting to contrast the extreme dependence of the Iraqis upon Americans with how the process of political independence and the establishment of a republican form of government was achieved in our own nation.

It is true that when Americans fought their war for independence they were aided by several brilliant European generals who came to America to offer their advice. And the French helped our cause on several occasions (most notably at the conclusive battle of Yorktown). But it is possible that the British benefited more from foreign soldiers (the Hessians) than the colonists did from French assistance. And once independence was achieved, Americans did the rest of their nation-building on their own.

The post-independence United States also suffered from regional rivalries and political bickering. But Thomas Jefferson scoured his own library and the libraries of Europe and shipped trunks filled with books about the history of confederacies to James Madison. One of Madison's biographers commented: “Madison used some of the books sent by Jefferson to make a systematic investigation of European confederations. From his studies, carried out in 1786 and early 1787, he concluded that other confederations, in their dependence upon member states for enforcement of confederation legislation, suffered from the same fundamental weakness as the American Union.”

The patriots who attended our Constitutional Convention in 1787 borrowed ideas from the best governments that had preceded them, including the Roman republic and the Swiss confederation. They produced a Constitution that has served us wonderfully for over two centuries. (Except when it is ignored, such as when we go to war without a congressional declaration of war!) And all the while this was going on, no foreign power sacrificed the lives of its soldiers to maintain order for America. We did it all on our own.

Unlike our Founding Fathers, who sweated in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall throughout the summer of 1787 and did not emerge until they had produced a Constitution, Iraq’s parliamentarians have basically “gone fishin’ ”! Meanwhile, as the high temperature in Baghdad today is predicted to be 111 degrees, American troops patrol the city dressed in hot battle gear. And some Americans still think we owe these people something?

The books accumulated by Jefferson are undoubtedly still available. Why not translate them into Arabic, send a trunk filled with them to the Iraqis, and as the last American solder catches a plane home, he (or she) can issue a parting message: “Good luck! It’s been nice knowing you!”

Or, as one wag put it: If the Iraqis need a constitution, why not send them ours. We’re not using it!”
 

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