How Do You End a War?

By Bridget Moix on 12/14/2011 @ 04:30 PM

Tags: Foreign Policy, Peaceful Prevention, Iraq, Middle East

In the coming weeks, the last of US combat troops will be deployed out of Iraq. There will be welcome home celebrations for the troops and media images of the final soldiers crossing the border. The Obama administration will claim it has delivered on its campaign promise to end the war. GOP candidates will claim the President has undermined US national security. And before we know it, the human realities of the war will be transformed into political point-making. We should expect nothing less (or more) in an election year.

Meanwhile, those who lived through the war -Iraqis themselves and military troops - will continue to suffer, and the long, hard work of rebuilding peace will go on for decades. While US troops may be coming home, conditions in Iraq are far from peaceful. So, is the war really over? For official US military operations, yes. For the veterans? Maybe in daylight. For Iraqis? Well, ask them in a year or two.

For those of us who worked hard to prevent this tragic, illegal, dishonest war - and then so hard to limit its damage and bring it to an end - it is a great relief to see this deplorable chapter of U.S. policy coming to an end. But I find it hard to celebrate. More than eight years of organized killing, a country devastated, a region destabilized, a world inflamed against the U.S. and its ceaseless appetite for war. One horrible policy choice has come to an end, but too many others continue. After all, it was a war that never should have happened - that had international law, moral right, and sound policy arguments all stacked against it.

I'll never forget crying in front of my television set as the U.S.'s "shock and awe" attack on Baghdad began. We had tried so hard, so many of us, to prevent that moment. We had millions of people around the world with us. We had a good number of members of Congress and lots of bipartisan foreign policy experts with us. We had the U.N. Security Council with us. All declaring that war was not the answer. And still the war happened. It was a difficult, painful reality to face.

Still, the importance of the end of this war shouldn't be underestimated either. Because it didn't end on its own. It took massive public outcry, organized protest, and strategic lobbying and advocacy to ensure the war would end and US troops would leave. FCNL had been advocating its war is not the answer message since 9/11, but it was the Iraq War that brought it nationwide and helped energize a movement to work toward not just saying no to war, but also seeking concrete alternatives to prevent war.

I remember working with an incredible coalition of organizations here in DC in the lead up to the war, meeting together in FCNL's old building and going on joint lobby visits. I remember the member of Congress who carried around FCNL's quote sheet - statements by bipartisan policy leaders against going to war - in his breast pocket to pull out and reference when he needed. I remember countless marches and the incredibly inspiring images of peace rallies from all around the world of that "other superpower", as the New York Times called the civil society movement against the war. I remember all the hard work of lobbying day by day after the war was underway to ensure "no permanent bases" in Iraq and require an exit strategy to end US military operations. And I remember friends working in Iraq to nurture peace in the midst of war, lost.

Did our efforts make a difference? I believe so. Though the war was launched and dragged on for far too long, it has become a dark page in U.S. policy history and its end has come sooner than it would have without an organized movement pressing for policy change. The countless letters to Congress, the community education, the letters to the editor and op-eds, the in-person visits with members of Congress - without them, an even broader war might well still be raging. I do think the impact and ultimate scope of the war was curbed because of those efforts by FCNL and so many others. And I believe it offers lessons for us as we continue down the long path of learning to end and prevent wars better. Peace is, as Sydney Bailey said, a process, and it goes on even in the midst of war. It will certainly go on in Iraq, and without a massive US military presence, those local peacemaking efforts might have more chance of success. While the troops are coming home, the US continues to have a moral and legal responsibility to support rebuilding and repairing relationships in Iraq.

As the last U.S. combat troops leave Iraq, I hope one of the lessons our policymakers are finally learning is that the costs of war - human, social, political, and economic - are far greater than the costs of the tools of preventing war - diplomacy, development, international cooperation. That there are alternatives to military force (remember those weapons inspectors who turned out to be right). And that even when a conflict is escalating toward the brink (think Iran), war is not the answer.