Barack Obama has announced the withdrawal of nearly 100,000 troops from Iraq by 2010, with possibly 50,000 remaining in the country until 2011. British troops are expected to depart by the end of the summer with all but a small number of personnel remaining.

There was once a time when talk of withdrawal would have been dismissed as reckless and immoral (though some still called for it anyway, particularly within the anti-war left). The year was only 2005-06 when the military might and sophistication of US and British forces was being undermined; we were losing the war and with it our respect within the international community. Iraq was a country suffering from ethnic and religious fragmentation, a ferocious Sunni insurgency and a radical Shia insurgency, both united in their attacks on coalition forces but enemies within their own sectarian war. Iraqi civilians, meanwhile, were the ultimate casualties being butchered at the hands of an elusive al-Qaida in Iraq.

The miscalculated postwar plan guaranteed that things were not going to be easy. The Coalition Provisional Authority made a shambles of governance, crippling Iraq’s civil and local institutions, wrongly assuming US personnel would be able to carry on the business of governance after Saddam and creating thousands of jobless angry Iraqis, in effect a cesspool of potential insurgency fighters. Expectations were therefore high and misplaced: the ability of Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups to unite and govern after decades of totalitarianism was overestimated.

Disastrous decisionmaking has cost Iraqis dearly. Millions are displaced, internally and externally. Estimates put the civilian death toll in Iraq beyond 100,000, while the injured extend towards the 1 million mark. These figures account for the Arab-dominant parts of Iraq, since the Kurdistan region in the north has been relatively secure but nevertheless paid the price for its current successes during the tyrannical rule of the Baath regime. 

Despite the less than perfect start, Iraq it seems has defied the odds against it and has made a tectonic shift from the brink of destruction. The year is now 2009 and law and order, together with accountability, has arrived in the country. Violence and civilian casualties have dramatically reduced. The Iraqi army is maintaining a stable security environment, an environment, that is, where vibrant nightlife has replaced night-time kidnappings and curfews. Menacing violence still remains, particularly in the disputed territories of Kirkuk, Mosul and Diyala. Iraqi and US forces are now committing a surge of troops to those provinces to fight off the depleted numbers of terrorist jihadists and remnants of the Sunni and Shia insurgency.

In January, Iraqis voted in peaceful provincial elections that selected governing councils in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces. Door-to-door campaigning and party political posters, as part of an electric electoral atmosphere in which 14,000 candidates were competing for only 440 seats, replaced the blood and bombs of the 2005 elections; this time round the Sunnis participated, in contrast to the previous elections which they boycotted because of security fears and out of protest against what was by then a UN-mandated foreign presence in Iraq.

Improved security therefore means the democratic process in Iraq has become a more respectable affair. Violent radicalism is waning in the face of security and democracy: political groups like the Awakening fronts and Baathist group al-Hadba previously comprised the Sunni insurgency but are now contesting democratic elections. In similar fashion, militias belonging to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have ostensibly transformed into a social services organisation, ever since it became the target of government crackdowns.

But while it is the democratic institutions that dictate who holds power at federal, regional and provincial levels, they are nevertheless institutions that operate in a sensitive environment. The aforementioned groups still command a large army of loyal and heavily armed men that can revitalise the insurgency at any point. The Sunni insurgency may have come to the political realisation that its postwar dream to restore Sunni power is all but dead but, like the Sadrists, it can still seek reparation through violent means and pose a security headache for the Iraqi government and US forces.

Relations between the central government and the federal Kurdistan government continue to deteriorate. Prime Minister Maliki has been criticised for over-concentrating power, deploying the use of armed support councils and the Iraqi army to further his own political interests. The deployment of Iraqi forces in Kurdish dominated areas in one instance nearly led to full war with Kurdish security forces. Moreover, the status of the oil-rich Kirkuk governorate remains unresolved. Article 140 of the constitution provides for a referendum to be held to determine the status of the governorate but voting has been delayed out of fears it would stir tensions and lead to ethnic war.

What the exact posture of any remaining US troops in Iraq will be is not clear at this point. But retaining 50,000 troops, or more depending on the circumstances, makes any withdrawal a responsible one; one that puts Iraqi lives in the hands of war-scarred, on the ground commanders and away from the mercy of the ‘quick exit’ coalition.

It would be complacent to argue that Iraq has become a flourishing state. But it does have all the necessary ingredients to become one: since 2005 it has had a constitution that four out of five Iraqis voted for and which accommodates the interests of the country’s myriad of ethnic and religious groups; it is nurturing an effective army that has the respect of the Iraqis; it has produced a democratic process and culture that sets the bar for others in the region; and political disputes are being resolved through democratic and constitutional means, for the time being at least.

They are, of course, achievements that have come at great cost to Iraqi civilians. This, together with the failure to find any WMDs, the shame of Abu Ghraib and the controversy surrounding flawed intelligence, meant that general public opinion towards the Iraq war was going to be an uncompromisingly negative one. It still continues to be, and Iraqis continue to pay the price for this too.

Iraqis are being failed because their achievements in the ‘new’ Iraq are not being recognised and celebrated. They are optimistic about the future but their optimism is clouded by this outdated fixation with the rights and wrongs of the war and because this, after all, was a war that many rendered illegal and synonymous with an American imperialistic conquest unrelated to, and serving in no way, British security interests.

Obama retracted from his sceptical outlook on Iraq when he told US forces at Camp Lejeune in February, with an underlying sense of achievement, that they ‘got the job done’. Tolerable conditions mean that we can now become engaged in developing Iraq by – to borrow a phrase from Obama – extending our hands to the desperate unclenched fists of the Iraqi trade unions, the NGOs and women’s organisations, among others. Our human rights and charitable communities should extend to Iraq that same level of solidarity and compassion they devote to other enterprises like urging debt relief and aid for Africa.

2009 should be a year of promoting Iraq and Iraqis rather than holding Iraqis back because of our prejudiced views and their past misfortunes; otherwise, we play our part in sustaining an environment which is conducive to violence and radicalism. Whatever our position on the war, grudges against the governments that took part in it, and an Iraq war inquiry or not, it is imperative as progressive internationalists to recognise the indisputable fact that there is light at the end of the tunnel for Iraq, and to celebrate it rather than just make a passing reference to it. It is incumbent on progressives to assist Iraq towards that light but to do so in an unblinkered, honest and proactive, rather than reactive, fashion.