Twenty-three years after the invasion of Iraq, Washington seems to have suddenly regained its senses — or worse, to be a detached observer of a catastrophe that it did not create. However, the record does not permit such lenient forgiveness. The United States is not an impartial bystander to Iraq’s political demise; it is the surgeon who performed the operation, then left the patient to bleed to death in the dark. What Washington is doing today is not state-building. It is the management of a decaying body — keeping a faint pulse, never attempting real resuscitation.

It is worth recalling that Paul Bremer, the US civilian administrator of Iraq in 2003, was not a bureaucratic footnote, but rather the chief architect of the decision to dissolve the Iraqi army, dismantle state institutions and create a political and security vacuum that was quickly filled by Iran-aligned militias and parties. This was not a technical miscalculation, but a deliberate choice. The old state was destroyed without any viable replacement, merely handing power over to sectarian groups who viewed Iraq as spoils, not a nation. From that moment on, the question was no longer why Iraq had failed, but how any country designed in this way could possibly survive.

Then came General David Petraeus, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq from 2007 to 2008. He told Congress that Iranian influence had penetrated Iraqi state institutions ‘because the state itself was absent’. This is not just a passing remark; it is an admission that Washington turned a blind eye to Tehran’s infiltration of the country, treating it as an inevitable consequence of the occupation. During those years, Shia militias were used as tactical partners against al-Qaeda, only to evolve into a parallel authority stronger than the state itself.

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When the Obama administration withdrew in 2011, it did so like an investor abandoning a failed venture — without taking moral or political responsibility for the consequences. Brett McGurk, the US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, later acknowledged that Iran had become ‘the most influential actor in Baghdad’ after the withdrawal, especially after then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki left Iraq’s gates wide open. Washington, he admitted, ‘had no real leverage.’ This is not merely an admission of failure; it is confirmation that the United States effectively handed Iraq to Iran, only to return years later to lament “destabilising Iranian activities”, as if the outcome were unexpected.

Today, Joshua Harris, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Baghdad, declared that ‘any Iraqi government must remain fully independent’. This statement borders on political satire. Washington is demanding Iraqi independence, even though it was the very force that stripped Iraq of its sovereignty, rebuilt its political system on sectarian quotas and empowered parties whose loyalties lie everywhere except in Baghdad. It’s akin to asking the engineer who collapsed a building to advise the residents on how best to use the remaining rubble.

The United States now speaks of ‘countering destabilising Iranian activities’, yet never confronted them when they were still in their infancy. The George W. Bush administration treated the Supreme Council, the Dawa Party and the Badr Corps — groups with strong ties to Iran — as natural partners in the ‘new Iraq’. This temporary alliance produced a political system based on sectarian apportionment that could not survive without crushing Iraqi national identity in favour of sectarian identity. The U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) later described this system as ‘an ideal environment for systemic corruption and waste’. The New York Times even described the Central Bank of Iraq as ‘a sewage system for smuggled dollars’. Corruption was not an unintended consequence; it was part of the design — a network of interests, not a state.

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Even now, Washington speaks of ‘restoring balance’ in Iraq, despite having been the very party that shattered that balance in the first place. Antony Blinken, the former U.S. Secretary of State, repeatedly insisted that the United States was ‘working with Iraqi partners to strengthen sovereignty’.

But how can sovereignty be strengthened in a political system that is based on dividing power among factions whose real patrons are based in other countries?

But how can sovereignty be strengthened in a political system that is based on dividing power among factions whose real patrons are based in other countries?

In this context, sovereignty becomes an empty word for press releases, while real decisions are made in Tehran.

For Washington, Iraq resembles the sports that Chuck Klosterman writes about: once central to the American imagination, they are now drifting to the margins. It is no longer a top-tier strategic priority, but a geopolitical burden that cannot be abandoned or meaningfully repaired without dismantling the entire post-2003 structure, from the distorted constitution to the sectarian distribution of power. So Washington opts for crisis management, not resolution; tempo control, not a new melody. Washington wants an Iraq that does not threaten U.S. interests, does not fall entirely into Iran’s hands and does not grow strong enough to escape the American orbit. An Iraq suspended in a ‘grey zone’ — administered, but never healed.

The result is a country that is not merely failing, but has been failed by design. It is a state that has been left to become an arena for Iranian influence and is then suddenly asked to behave as if it were sovereign. A political system that is run like a spoils market, yet is then lectured about ‘national interests’. A country governed by armed militias with money and veto power, yet expected to function like a normal state with functioning institutions and laws.

The harsh truth is that Washington does not want to correct its mistake in Iraq because doing so would necessitate a rethink of its entire Middle East strategy.

What Washington wants is to prevent that mistake from exploding in its face — to maintain a state of ‘relative stability’ that protects US interests at minimal political cost.

What Washington wants is to prevent that mistake from exploding in its face — to maintain a state of ‘relative stability’ that protects US interests at minimal political cost.

Twenty-three years on, the problem is no longer what the United States did, but what it refuses to admit it did. Meanwhile, Iraqis are the only ones living in the real stadium: no comfortable seats, no giant screens, no final whistle and no luxury of pretending to be spectators.

Still, let us watch closely. Perhaps Washington has truly come to its senses and intends to atone for its invasion by rescuing Iraq from Iran’s grip at long last. Let us wait and see.

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