Sky - The unravelling : high hopes and missed opportunities in Iraq

THE

UNRAVELLING

First published in hardback in the United States in 2015 by PublicAffairs, a Member of the Perseus Books Group.

First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2015 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright Emma Sky 2015

The moral right of Emma Sky to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

Extract from Out of the East by James Fenton taken from Yellow Tulips: Poems 19682011

James Fenton and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd

Iraq reprinted courtesy of Adnan al-Sayegh

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-78239-257-6

E-book ISBN: 978-1-78239-259-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78239-260-6

Printed in Great Britain

Book design by Jane Raese

Atlantic Books

An Imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

Ormond House

2627 Boswell Street

London

WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

TO

GENERAL RAYMOND T. ODIERNO

AND ALL THOSE WHO SERVED IN IRAQ

DURING THE AMERICAN ERA

AND

TO MY IRAQI FRIENDS

CONTENTS

ABBREVIATIONS

PREFACE

N OTHING THAT HAPPENED in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was preordained. And there was nothing inevitable about the way the story unfolded.

This memoir recounts my experiences in Iraq over more than a decade. My story starts when I responded to the British governments request for volunteers to help rebuild the country after the fall of the regime and found myself responsible for Kirkuk, trying to diffuse tensions between the different Iraqis scrambling to control the province. It continues through the Surge when I served as the political adviser to General Ray Odierno; goes through the drawdown of US troops; and ends with the takeover of a third of Iraq by the Islamic State. It is a tale of unintended consequences, both of President Bushs efforts to impose democracy and of President Obamas detachment; of action as well as non-action.

The Unravelling describes the challenges of nation building and how the overthrow of an authoritarian regime can lead to state collapse and conflict. It reminds us of the limitations of external actors in foreign lands, but also where we can have influence. Those the US-led Coalition excluded from power sought to undermine the new order that was introduced. And those we empowered sought to use the countrys resources for their own interests, to subvert the nascent democratic institutions, and to use the security forces we trained and equipped to intimidate their rivals. There was more the US could have done to help broker a deal among the elites and to ensure the peaceful transfer of power through elections. Instead, the US took the risky gamble of betting on Nuri al-Maliki, in the mistaken belief that he shared the same interests and goals as us, and that he would use the dramatic decline in violence brought about during the Surge to build up a sovereign, self-reliant and democratic Iraq. The failure of this policy became only too apparent when the Islamic State (Daash) catapulted to prominence in June 2014, taking control of vast swathes of Iraqi territory and presenting itself as the defender of Sunnis against the Iranian-backed Shia-led regime in Baghdad; and when the Iraqi Security Forces deserted and dissolved.

P RESIDENT B ARACK O BAMA became the fourth American president to order airstrikes on Iraq, following in the footsteps of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The initial airstrikes were to stop Daash from exterminating Iraqs minorities and taking over Erbil. However, following the beheadings of two American hostages by Daash, the US quickly expanded its airstrikes into Syria. Americans were no longer war weary. They were scared againand wanted retribution.

Never had Obama expected to find himself in such a position. He had campaigned for president pledging to end the Iraq war. In 2009, still in his first year in office, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

Obama, who had presented himself as the president who would extract America from its foreign entanglements and focus on nation building at home, has reluctantly taken the country back to war in the Middle Eastwith no sense of how it will end.