Eli5: how did America actually destabilize the Middle East in the Iraq war? What was done specifically that caused all of the chaos in the countries we were involved in?
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Killing leaders, destroying cities, turning people against each other doesn’t really do much to stabilize it
It’s an area of the world where there are a lot of competing…interests. Generally stability is maintained by one of those competing interests gaining enough… influence they are able to maintain control. When the US removed one of the most influential groups, it left a vacuum the other interests wanted for themselves.
First, they dismantled the existing government and made little effort to build up something with which to replace it. One of the more infamous pre-war propaganda efforts was that an obscure organization (I forget its name) was portrayed by the US as if it represented a broad opposition movement that was all ready to take over as soon as Saddam Hussein was gone. In fact, this organization had no influence and was completely ignored once the US had taken over. The US and its allies put very little money into planning what would happen after they conquered Iraq – there was one story that someone visited an office responsible for this and was shocked to find only a few people sat around a table designing a new Iraqi flag.
Second, the process of invading Iraq inevitably killed many people and damaged a great deal of infrastructure, which created resentment and disrupted people’s lives and the economy.
Third, the fact that there was so little international support for the invasion meant that many countries and international bodies were hesitant to assist the new government (which was widely seen as a puppet of the US) or were actively hostile to it.
Iraq had some form of governance and a system of authority. It may not resemble the US’ nor were they going to really ever see eye to eye on many issues. The US successfully overthrew the government and wanted to (giving the US the benefit of the doubt) install a new one that was “better”.
However, the execution was really bad. There are many many points to this and a comment won’t do it justice (you’re warned – this is ELI5). The initial US Army administration in Iraq wanted to “use” the existing power structure (Iraqi army and the Baath party) to try to restore order and a semblance of government. This had the advantage that these folks were experienced and were embedded in Iraqi society (for better or worse).
Unfortunately the army was replaced by a civilian administrator (Paul Bremer?) who approached this perhaps more idealistically. Basically he banned all former Baath (former ruling party) members from holding political office and any formal civil authority. Then he fired the Iraqi army. This naturally brought about a huge amount of resentment and chaos. Like it or not, the Baath party members knew how things worked in Iraq and putting several hundred thousand (youngish) men who used to be soldiers on the street without much legal means to support themselves led to a quite foreseeable outcome. They went underground, supported Al-Qaeda, and fomented insurrection and crime.
It was clear that the US wasn’t going to administer Iraq for the next 50 years while these guys aged and died. So Iran stepped into the background, started working their influence and here we are. A weak Iraqi government and society, riddled with discontent and Iranian influence.
Now the Middle East had many other actors with their own age old issues and enemies. So it is likely not fair to say that Iraq was the center of all Middle Eastern problems. But lets say that the US wasn’t exactly very wise in their actions. Regime change and rebuilding a society on very different principles is the work of a lifetime (or two).
US domestic politics also plays a huge role. If the US bit the bullet and declared “yep, we’re a colonial power now” and stayed on for another half century, there is a chance that this would have worked. But there was no chance that the US had the political will to do this nor would the US want to pay that amount of international diplomatic cost to do so.
The entire Middle East was part of the Ottoman Empire from the 1200s (maybe earlier) until World War I when the Ottoman Empire fell apart after the war.
After WWI Britain and France drew lines on the map in an attempt to stabilize the region, this is the same period when Israel was first introduced as a real thing. The empire was hardly perfect, but over the ages they had largely found ways to bring stability to the region and a sort of live-and-let-live peace was able to sustain itself. When the central power (the empire) fell apart and lines were drawn randomly you suddenly had some groups split who wanted to be together, and some put together who had previously been able to ignore each other so far as it was possible to do so. In short, the groups in this region lost the semi-autonomy they had held for 600-odd years was interrupted.
Powers came and went, but long story short – the root of the problem was drawing straight lines on a map and trying to enforce them without bothering to learn much about how the ethnicities, languages, cultures, and polities of the region understood and divided themselves. This led to a lot of conflict between groups in the region trying to organize the political fallout from the fall of the empire peacefully, those trying to do it democratically, and those trying to take the strong-man approach. It doesn’t help that vast deposits of oil were discovered in the area. The Israel mandate didn’t help the situation, either. Nor both Britain and France wanting to seize the Suez Canal and the US and USSR arguing it should go to a regional government (Egypt controls it today).
It would be wrong to say that things were peaceful by the time we got to the 1990s, but they were stable because all the strong-men who had risen to the top of their specific areas were in a detente. That is, they all had militaries, militants, and various “shadow” forces that were similar to each other in total force capacity. Things were not peaceful, but they were in a standoff that was stable.
By removing Saddam Hussein, we created a power vacuum not only within the country but in the region. Now militants in Syria, Iran, Pakistan, other regional nations, and non-state nations (like Kurdistan) began the long process of re-aligning their power plays that often have to play out across international borders…but international borders are those straight lines that were drawn after WWI with no mind to the nuance of local culture or politics. Some are after power believing it is their religious right, others are in it for oil money, some for familial or tribal allegiances that they feel are inadequately recognized/respected in the region, and so on and so forth. While the major powers (Iraq, Iran, etc) had been in military parity it was a risky thing for these non-state actors to do much more than talk amongst themselves and maybe skirmish way out in the middle of nowhere. Once that power vacuum opened up they all enjoined their squabbles and power struggles full-force.
That Wagner group and other Russian parties have played both ends to the middle doesn’t help the situation, and whatever you think of Israel their presence in the region being backed by superpowers like the US makes the region a hotbed for proxy wars, which is a lot of what we are seeing at the moment in the form of these various power struggles and ages-old blood feuds.
There were and are a LOT of people groups in the area, to get you started I’ll point you at Kurdistan, a ‘stateless nation’ created by the random lines on the map. They are one example, but there are others as well. The whole sub-continent has similar stories, this one is just an “easy to find” example that perhaps has more available information about it than some: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan)
Simon Whistler did a video about it on his Warographics channel if you prefer a video format: [https://youtu.be/jWYslKbs01A?si=-MvoFoTsF4IVABYM](https://youtu.be/jWYslKbs01A?si=-MvoFoTsF4IVABYM)
You might also look at the Scramble for Africa, which was a very similar process done by the colonial powers on that continent earlier in the same era, in fact you could say the Middle East was the end of that era (done in the same way), an action that still drives regional and global politics today despite being “solved” some 125 years ago. [Spoiler alert: it’s not solved] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa)
Basically after the invasion the US propped up a government that cut out a large percentage of the previous workforce. I believe it was basically everyone who was middle management and up. Thereby creating a large group of resentful influential locals who now had no role to fill and a replacement group that was not qualified to run the country’s infrastructure.
The TLDR is that the US Army is very good at blowing things up, not as good at maintaining law and order (especially where a small group of locals is bent on not having law and order). And in that absence of law and order (power vacuum) bad actors do what they do.
Firstly, we removed the governing authority in the interest of de-Baathification (thanks Paul Bremer!)….not just upper leadership, but a substantial portion of the army and police forces. These same people were the ones keeping order (albeit through often ruthless and repressive methods).
In addition, many of the military and police forces were not only now unemployed, but lost their position of respect in society. The same people that had access to weapons and military training now have no means of feeding their families, and now have legitimate resentment against the occupying forces. These people would go on to form a large part of the home-grown insurgency.
Secondly, we parked our armies in the middle of Iraqi population centers. This meant that 19-year old enlisted personnel with 22-year old junior officers were tasked with trying to police a population that increasingly grew to resent them, spoke a different language, and completely distrusted and misunderstood each other. This means that the same 19- and 22-year olds (who were trained to eliminate their opposing military numbers through the application of overwhelming force) are now tasked with the very complex and difficult job of maintaining order in a society that doesn’t really want you there.
In many cases, the US Army took over Saddam Hussein’s compounds and military bases because it was convenient. But not a good look to the local population – essentially that we took out Saddam and replaced him with foreign occupiers.
Also, US military planners estimated it would take over 500,000 troops to secure the country post invasion. Idiots like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ignored all the detailed military planning, and said we could occupy the country with less than 200,000 troops. The result was that things did not go well, and we did not control the country.
In addition, the location of the US Army in Iraq provided a juicy target for al-Qaeda and ISIL/ISIS. And these people had a very simple job: cause chaos and destruction (destabilizing) so that local populations would increasingly distrust and blame the US.
There’s countless reasons (which were already well known and discussed before we invaded), but the lesson is the modern armies are very good at destroying things, but not as good at doing all of the other activities required to maintain control over societies….particularly when half the local population views you as an occupier, not a liberator. And in the power vacuum that follows, all kinds of bad actors move in to fill the void.
Not enough people are calling out Paul Bremer’s decision to suddenly disband the Iraqi army.
Its a lot like StarWars. Just because the good guys kill the emperor doesnt mean bad guys all just quit… sometimes the emperor might have been doing good stuff and no one really want to pay attention because hes supposed to be the bad guy right?
When we removed Hussain, it created a power vaccum that let all the little gangs gain traction whereas before, Saddam would squash anyone who opposed his power. We didnt help much, we just got rid of the guy that didnt wanna play our game. Saddam tried to accept gold or euros for his oil. Same thing Gaddafi did later and obama obliterated him and his (highest living standard in Africa ) country too.
Sometimes bad guys do good things for people we dont like and thats what makes them a bad guy. Before OIF iraq had something like 96% running water supply for its citizens. Murica messed that up real good.
Like it or not, Middle Eastern societies “work” on non-democratic systems where family/clan affiliation is all important in terms of securing work, status, wealth, power etc. These systems have developed over hundreds of years and you can’t just go into a country and turn it over/around in a few years or even decades.
In Iraq, Saddam’s regime worked through having family/clan members in key positions of power. This then filtered down to lower levels where local and military offices were acquired really as a result of nepotism. When this entire system was dismantled it left a huge void which other groups tried to fill mostly through violence.
Then of course there is the Sunni/Shia spilling which Saddam had suppressed, all be it brutally, over the previous 30 years. Without him and the Iraqi army/security services this division exploded as well.
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