Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the United States is finding it harder than ever to garner international support for military operations in the country, as even staunch allies such as Britain have pulled out much of their forces.
At the time of the US-led invasion in March 2003, only four other countries sent troops as part of the so-called "coalition of the willing," and only Britain contributed significantly.
With France, Germany, Russia and China leading opposition to the Iraq war and blocking the UN Security Council from approving the action, the US-led invasion was never going to gather a huge following. Only Britain, Australia, Poland and Albania provided initial forces, though a few dozen other governments around the world, particularly in Eastern Europe, supported the invasion.
Former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously derided France and Germany as "old Europe" for their opposition to the war and said that the centre of power in Europe was "shifting" eastward.
While the Security Council in October 2003 did back a multinational force to keep the peace after the invasion, the international community has remained hesitant to provide forces to help in Iraq's reconstruction.
According to globalsecurity.org, 38 countries have contributed forces at one time or another since 2003, but only Britain in large numbers. Some major leaders who supported the war effort - Spain's Jose Maria Asnar, Italy's Silvio Belusconi and Australia's John Howard - have since been voted out of office.
The United Nations pulled its operations out of Iraq after its compound was bombed in 2005 - the deadliest attack ever on a UN office, killing 22 staff members including the UN's mission head Sergio Vieira De Mello of Brazil. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in September pledged a renewed commitment to Iraq, but it remains unclear if that will include any UN staff on the ground.
Only 18 countries now remain in Iraq, and of those that stayed most have scaled down their already limited presence amid opposition at home. Poland and Australia are in the process of withdrawing their forces completely, while Britain has reduced its numbers to a small force near the airport in the southern city of Basra.
In Britain, the trauma of the Iraq war is something politicians and the nation wish to forget. But living through what many considered a personal crusade of former prime minister Tony Blair has left a lasting legacy for citizens and leaders alike.
The electorate, who protested by the millions against Blair's support for US President George W Bush and the "coalition of the willing," has grown even more cynical about politics, mistrusting what they are told and showing their disillusionment by staying away from the ballot box.
The Blair government's credibility gap arose in part from the revelation of a cabinet document drawn up to heighten the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction - dubbed the "dodgy dossier." That legacy continues to weigh on Britons' belief in democracy, polls have shown.
Blair's central claim - based on intelligence information - that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack in 45 minutes, has since been exposed as false, and Blair was forced to retract the comment.
Now a Middle East peace envoy, Blair seems to still have some standing internationally, especially in the United States, but his reputation at home is at rock-bottom. In Europe, the idea of Blair becoming the European Union's new president meets with widespread resentment.
For Blair's successor, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Labour government's association with the Iraq conflict and its previous close alliance with Bush were a handicap when he came to power in June 2007.
As quickly as he could, Brown has ordered a phased withdrawal of forces from Iraq and adopted a cooler style in relations with Washington. While a keen Atlantic alliance supporter and defender of the "special relationship" between the two countries, Brown has made it as clear as possible that he has scant admiration for Bush's aggressive foreign-policy style and shares little personal chemistry with the US leader.
With Bush's term as president up in January and Labour hoping that a Democrat will win the White House, Brown's central foreign policy problem remains Britain's commitment to Afghanistan. Brown has made it clear that Britain is in Afghanistan for the long haul. By the time elections come around, at the latest May 2010, Brown could find that British voters resent all wars - from Iraq to Afghanistan.
With British forces stretched to capacity, voters in Britain are unlikely to hail the long-term fallout from conflicts entered in the name of fighting global terrorism.
Five years ago Iraq's desert stillness was broken by the roar of explosions and gunfire as US-led forces entered Iraq to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. Fear, anxiety and adrenalin-fuelled excitement drove friend and foe alike. But yesterday's foe the Iraqi Army - is today's ally, and the traditional warfare of 2003 has morphed into a long campaign of counterinsurgency against al Qaeda terrorists and various nationalist groups. That means new attitudes and ways of doing things.
"I don't understand it, I just don't get it," a young American Army private told a reporter in the city of Baqubah in January. "All through basic training, advanced training and in predeployment we were taught how to kill and told to kill. Then we get here and we're told to make friends."
The soldier, relatively new in-country, voiced his confusion of war counterinsurgency-style on a combat operations post (COP), in the Khatoon district of Baqubah, about 65 kilometres north-east of Baghdad in Diyala province, and until late last year a hotbed of al- Qaeda activity.
COPs are the austere springboards from which US and Iraqi troops maintain security in neighbourhoods and villages. It's from them that daily patrols are made, raids are launched and rebuilding projects start. In Iraq 2007-2008, they are the lynchpins in the "clear, hold, build" surge strategy of US General David Petraeus.
In 2003, multinational forces secured an area and then advanced. Insurgents then moved into the vacated areas and established cells. US and Iraqi forces have since learned the lesson well. Thus the COPs, and the counterinsurgency strategy in which soldiers must be goodwill ambassador as well as warrior.
One minute, a soldier on patrol is chatting with a shopkeeper, the next he's darting past an open alley, crouching in a firing position because of a sniper attack.
"The soldiers have adapted very well, I think," said Lieutenant James Cleary, of the 38th Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Combat Brigade. "When we left to come here, Baqubah was all kinetic (active warfare). It's a lot different now. Sure, they get bored, but in the back of their minds they know the alternative to now isn't so good."
COP Khatoon is luxurious compared to most. Troops sleep on cots, have a small shower area and generators for lighting. One hot meal a day is trucked in from a larger base. But Porta-Potties temporary toilets - are still used. And when it rains, the compound becomes a sea of mud. Other COPs are no more than tents pitched in a garden.
The biggest threats the soldiers on COPs face when outside the security wire vary. In Baqubah the threats are mainly car bombs and suicide vests; at COP Rubiya in the northern city of Mosul it's the improvised explosive devices (IED) planted in and along roads, and snipers.
There was no malaise in March and April 2003. It was traditional, kinetic warfare. Much has changed and will continue to do so as the battle for the new Iraq continues. But some things will never change: soldiers - American, Iraq, Albanian, whatever - living lonely and dangerous lives while yearning for their families.
NEW MIDDLE EAST:
When it invaded Iraq five years ago, the United States had planned to remake the Middle East, bringing stability and democracy. The results may well have been the opposite. Among the problems introduced were the burden of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees borne by countries like Jordan and Syria.
Iraq itself has become a magnet for disgruntled al Qaeda-inspired Arabs from around the region who come and fight the Americans. Further, the invasion has deepened tensions between Washington and Tehran, increased Sunni-Shiite Muslim frictions throughout the region, and led to the rise in extremists in neighbouring countries.
According to analysts such as Lebanon's Ahmed Mousalli, innocent people across the Middle East are now paying the price of what some describe as the "Iraq effect."
First of all, says Mousalli, the so-called war on terrorism will drive the United States to confront "an expanding network of enemies in the region." At the top of the list of enemies is Iran. Tehran was quite happy to see the Baath regime in Baghdad go. Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, starting an eight-year war that devastated areas in Iran that have not fully recovered after almost 20 years.
On the negative side for Iran, its other more powerful foe, the US, now has a military presence both to its east in Afghanistan and west in Iraq. Plus a truculent US administration has been accusing Iran of arming insurgents and causing discord between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq.
Among innocents paying the price for the fallout of US Iraq policy is Jordan. Suicide bombings at that killed 60 at three five-star hotels in Amman in 2005 were carried out by Iraqis with al Qaeda allegiances.
And in Lebanon, there was the emergence of the al Qaeda-inspired group Fatah al-Islam in that battled the Lebanese army for three months in 2007. Fatah al-Islam's leader Shaker al-Abssi, now on the run, last year said the only way the people of the Middle East could achieve their rights was "by force" because, he said: "This is the way America deals with us."
Many of the 200 members of Abssi's group fought in Iraq. According to intelligence officials, Abssi's organisation is part of the re-emergence of al Qaeda, which was shattered after the US bombardment of Afghanistan in 2001.
Former Lebanese army general and terrorism expert Hisham Jaber said "the Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of al Qaeda ideological virus in the whole Middle East and not just in Lebanon." "We can see clearly that young Muslim teenagers are being groomed to be suicide bombers, to fight what they see the American threat on Muslim regions. The threat is serious and is growing," Jaber said.
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