From an empowered Iran and eroded US influence, to the cost of keeping US troops in Iraq and Syria to combat Daesh fighters, the United States still contends with the consequences of invading Iraq 20 years ago, current and former officials say.
Then-US President George W. Bush’s 2003 decision to oust Saddam Hussein by force, the way limited US troop numbers enabled ethnic strife and the eventual 2011 US pullout have all greatly complicated US policy in the Middle East, they said.
The end of Saddam’s minority Sunni rule and replacement with a Shia majority government in Iraq freed Iran to deepen its influence across the Levant, especially in Syria, where Iranian forces and Shia militias helped Bashar Al-Assad crush a Sunni uprising and stay in power.
The 2011 withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq left a vacuum that Daesh militants filled, seizing roughly a third of Iraq and Syria, and fanning fear among Gulf Arab states that they could not rely on the United States.
