Iraq & Afghanistan: Did We Do Well?

The U.S. government experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan are fragile and slowly improving but violence is rising as American and NATO troops are recalled in the two countries.

After toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, the U.S. redesigned the country’s government, even rewriting the Constitution. Some things have improved under the disputed democratically elected governments. Others have not.

“Since the 2011 U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, sectarian and ethnic divisions have widened,” according Kenneth Katzman, a specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs.

These divisions have created fertile ground for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and also for the return of sectarian militias that plagued Iraq in 2006 and 2007, according to The New York Times and Katzman.

The Iraqi military has struggled to successfully confront ISIL as the country grows continually more divided.

After the September 11 terrorist attack, the U.S. government launched what would become a 13 year war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. On Sunday, December 28th, President Barack Obama officially ended that war.

During those 13 years NATO forces successfully cast down the Taliban regime and, with the help of the United Nations, reformed the Afghani government.

Despite lacking a leader of the Defense ministry, high desertion rates and “an unprecedented terrorism campaign in the capital” by the Taliban, The Washington Post reported that the majority of Afghans have confidence in their national army.

Foreign Policy reported that “the Taliban is poised for a comeback with a recent surge in violence in Kabul and around the country. There are concerns that Afghanistan’s military and fragile political institutions will crumble as the United States leaves.”

You decide; was the U.S. successful in Iraq and Afghanistan?