{"id":66847,"date":"2021-09-01T11:00:06","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T01:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=66847"},"modified":"2021-09-06T13:27:01","modified_gmt":"2021-09-06T03:27:01","slug":"aspis-decades-exiting-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/aspis-decades-exiting-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"ASPI\u2019s decades: Exiting Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ASPI celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. This series looks at ASPI\u2019s work since its creation in August 2001.<\/em><\/p>\n

Approaching Australia\u2019s 2007 election, the Liberal government and Labor opposition were sharply divided over how to depart from the military commitment in Iraq. The Liberal position was condition-based; Labor\u2019s was time-based.<\/p>\n

The Liberal government had \u2018made clear that it is in no hurry to withdraw Australian forces\u2019, Rod Lyon wrote<\/a>, while Labor would withdraw troops after consultation with Washington:<\/p>\n

So far, broadly speaking, we\u2019ve seen Iraq as the US\u2019s game; so the most likely exit point has been one virtually of Washington\u2019s choosing. If we want to move to a more \u2018independent\u2019 sense of our exit point, then our exit point logically depends on us reaching one of two decisions about the conditions in Iraq:<\/p>\n

\u2013 either we judge that we have achieved what we wanted out of our engagement or<\/p>\n

\u2013 we judge that what we wanted is no longer attainable at a sensible price.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the 2007 federal election campaign, Labor\u2019s Kevin Rudd argued that the scale of the Iraq disaster showed it was the wrong war: Australia should withdraw and concentrate on Afghanistan. Rudd\u2019s case was that Australia could leave Iraq while holding firm to the US alliance.<\/p>\n

Security issues had helped deliver two election wins for John Howard. The 9\/11 attack was an element in his victory in 2001. In the 2004 election, the Iraq and Afghanistan involvements\u2014with only one Australian military death in Afghanistan at that point\u2014were still a relative plus for Howard when weighed against the scepticism of the Labor leader, Mark Latham, about the US.<\/p>\n

By the 2007 election, though, Iraq weighed on the Howard government and was part of Rudd\u2019s effort to define Howard as yesterday\u2019s man. Issues of war and peace were central to those three elections of 2001, 2004 and 2007.<\/p>\n

As he took office in December 2007, Rudd announced that Australia\u2019s 550 troops serving in Iraq would be withdrawn by the middle of 2008.<\/p>\n

Following Rudd\u2019s timetable, Australia departed, leaving a fragile Iraqi government and sectarian conflict.<\/p>\n

Writing about trends in the Middle East in 2013, Lydia Khalil described a region \u2018at best in flux and at worst in turmoil<\/a>\u2019, pointing to:<\/p>\n