In his official remarks about the end of the U.S. occupation of
Iraq, President Obama told an assembly of troops:

The war in Iraq will soon belong to history. Your service
belongs to the ages. Never forget that you are part of an unbroken
line of heroes spanning two centuries—from the colonists who
overthrew an empire, to your grandparents and parents who faced
down fascism and communism, to you—men and women who fought for the
same principles in Fallujah and Kandahar, and delivered justice to
those who attacked us on 9/11.

You’d never know that a signature of Obama’s 2008 campaign was
his assertion that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a
terrible mistake. (Actually, it was a crime, but let that go.) This
was the main way he sought to distinguish himself as a candidate
from his rival, Hillary Clinton, who had voted to authorize George
W. Bush to use force against the Iraqi people on the thinnest of
pretexts. True, you didn’t have to scratch very deep before
discovering a waffle: At one point in 2008, Obama said he didn’t
know how he would have voted on the authorization of force had he
been in the Senate at the time.

Nevertheless, it is remarkable to see Obama
talking about an aggressive war this way. It is also remarkable he
could praise the troops without acknowledging the mind-numbing mess
Iraq has been left in. It is estimated
that over 100,000 Iraqis died direct violent deaths from the war.
And Lancet has
attributed a million excess deaths to the invasion, war, and
occupation. Over four million Iraqis are refugees, about half of
whom left the country and have yet to return to their homes.

Obama noted the American casualties but, of course,
omitted any mention of Iraqi casualties. They don’t matter.

War crimes abounded, like the ones in Fallujah, Haditha, and Abu
Ghraib. These horrors will be remembered forever—if not in the
United States then certainly throughout the Arab and Muslim
worlds—as will the U.S.-supported sectarian cleansing of
Baghdad.

Obama concluded his remarks with the standard pabulum about
sacrifice and American exceptionalism:

You will know that you answered when your country called; you
served a cause greater than yourselves; you helped forge a just and
lasting peace with Iraq, and among all nations.

Nonsense. The “country” didn’t call. It was just a hack
politician with an agenda on the line. I’m reminded of a scene in
Paddy Chayefsky’s antiwar movie, The Americanization of
Emily, when the protagonist says, “We … perpetuate war by
exalting its sacrifices.” Portray war as noble, and many will be
eager to be sent—and the country’s “misleaders” will be eager to
send them.

There was no great cause: American hegemony is not a
great cause. Many people died and otherwise had their lives ruined,
and Iraq has been left a shambles; sectarian violence is again
erupting. To be sure, Saddam Hussein was a nasty dictator, but left
in his place is a state divided by sectarian violence and ruled by
an authoritarian prime minister under a constitution that bears
little resemblance to any protection of freedom.

Even in the American empire’s own terms there’s nothing to brag
about. Unsurprisingly, the Iraqi government is aligned with Iran.
The U.S. military got none of the permanent bases it wanted, and
even the American oil companies lost out on the loot.

Obama will campaign on how he ended the war—which began not in
2003 but in 1991; the U.S. government tormented the Iraqi
people for 20 years!—and conservatives will attack him for it.
Both sides will conveniently forget that (1) the U.S. government
was obligated to leave on Dec. 31, 2011, under an agreement signed
by Bush, and (2) Obama tried his damnedest to get the Iraqi leaders
to ask the U.S. military to stay. (Contrary to claims, not all
troops have left.)

And let’s be clear: An exit from Iraq hardly constitutes an exit
from the Middle East. The troops moved down the road to Kuwait,
“repostured” for future use.

Meanwhile, sabers are being rattled in the direction of Iran and
Syria, where covert warfare is already being waged.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom
Foundation, author of Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare
State, and editor of The Freeman
magazine. This article originally appeared
at The Future of Freedom Foundation.