South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Barbara Slavin writes for Voice of America on Iraq’s need for continued assistance from the United States:
Nearly 4,500 American military personnel have died in Iraq since 2003. The latest, Delta Force Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler, was killed during a raid on an Islamic State prison compound last week.
Many in the Middle East, as well as in the United States, fault the Bush administration for invading the country over what turned out to be false intelligence and with so little foresight about what could go wrong. Others blame the Obama administration for withdrawing most U.S. forces and opening the door for the return of Sunni militants under the guise of the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS).
In Washington last week, Sayyed Jawad al-Khoei, a member of a distinguished Shi’ite clerical family in Iraq, told VOA that Iraqis remain grateful for American intervention and removal of a brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein. But Iraq, he conceded, “is not how we hoped it would be,” and needs carefully calibrated U.S. help.