Norton Co-Authors OpEd on Helping Iraqis Save Iraq
In an opinion piece published in The Boston Globe on Dec. 23, Professor Richard Augustus Norton and Joseph R. Núñez argue that the best role for the US in Iraq is to help Iraqis save Iraq themselves.
The Norton and Núñez argument is:
Effective armies cannot be built overnight. Transforming the military into a more professional and nationalistic organization will take lots of time. Strategic patience and a long-term commitment by the United States and its allies are necessary.
The United States should assist Iraq in the fight against ISIS, and much more needs to be done to generate military capability on the ground, but decisions ultimately are up to Iraq. As Abadi wrestles with essential military reforms, the United States and other allies should continue to support Iraq with top quality military trainers so that Iraqis can save Iraq.
Titled ‘Helping Iraqis Save Iraq’, the OpEd points out that “after American withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, the fiction that an effective national Iraqi army was created under US tutelage crumbled when ISIS captured Mosul last summer.” Now, as talk builds up of the Iraqi Army trying to retake Mosul, they caution that:
If Iraq tries to retake Mosul, the fighting will have to be street-to-street, house-to-house, and room-to-room. If the campaign is launched within a few months, it is doubtful the city will be liberated. Instead, Mosul could end up looking like the contested Syrian city of Aleppo, which is now largely in ruins.
According to Norton and Núñez the first step has to be for Iraq to begin to rebuild its army and that “the United States can assist but we cannot do it for the Iraqis.”
Read the full Op-Ed, here. Read a report of an earlier talk by Joseph R. Núñez at the Pardee School on the US role in teh future of Iraq, here.