Better in their words…

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L. Paul Bremer- June 15, 2014 6:04 p.m. ET

The crisis unfolding in Iraq is heartbreaking especially for those families who lost loved ones there. They gave so much; it is all at risk. It did not need to be this way.

As I wrote in these pages in December 2011 after the last of our military left Iraq, “President Obama made a serious mistake.” The withdrawal of all American forces has now had its predictable results.

First, our departure meant that the Iraqis lost a lot of immediate on-the-ground intelligence, a vital need for any effective military force. Second, though Iraqi military leaders publicly and privately stated that their national forces were not yet ready to defend the country, American training of those forces was cut back.

Finally, America lost considerable influence over political events in Iraq. Our military presence always had an important political dimension. It was symbolic of our intent to help Iraqis stay the course in rebuilding their country. Removing Saddam Hussein upended a thousand years of Sunni domination in the lands of Mesopotamia. It takes hard work and a long time after such a political revolution for stability to return. No amount of clever diplomacy could substitute for our continued military presence.

After we left, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, began a sectarian campaign against the Sunnis. Within 24 hours of our troops’ departure, he issued an arrest warrant for his Sunni vice president. He launched a campaign to intimidate the Kurds. He began to purge the Iraqi army of well-trained officers, sometimes down to the battalion level, often replacing them with his partisans.

What is to be done? President Obama said on Friday that “we have an interest that ISIL [Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant] does not get a broader foothold” in the region. This is correct but understates the risks to American interests. America’s core interest remains a stable, united and democratic Iraq. But American regional interests are broader. At stake now is the century-old political structure of the entire region, with huge consequences for our friends and allies there.

If the terrorists continue south and take the capital, Baghdad, or threaten the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, a full-scale civil war is likely. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani Friday issued the first call for “jihad” by the Shiite religious leadership in almost 100 years. Radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr has reactivated his ” Mahdi ” army and other Shiite leaders have recalled two battalions from Syria to fight in Iraq. A serious threat to the holy cities would almost certainly provoke intervention by Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the side of the Shiites. Kurdish leaders, who have the best-organized military force in Iraq, have taken advantage of the current chaos to wrest control of the long-coveted city of Kirkuk from the central government, and would be tempted to declare Kurdistan’s independence.

Those Americans who have pressed in the past for dividing Iraq should be careful: They might get what they wished for. The price would be very high: a regional war on top of an Iraqi civil war. American action now would be considerably less difficult than later.

After a feckless and hesitant American policy against any intervention to stop Bashar Assad’s slaughter in Syria, the region needs to see that we understand the risks by demonstrating a clear commitment to help restabilize Iraq. That means first stopping the southward march of the ISIL; then helping the Iraqis retake important cities like Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah.

Manned airstrikes may be useful against the ISIL lines of communication. But they are of limited use in urban environments. Whatever mix of manned or drone strikes is employed, we and the Iraqis will need good current intelligence. As during the U.S. troop surge in Iraq in 2007, Iraqis will need Americans to help plan and execute those operations. So there may be a need for American intelligence and fire control personnel on the ground. If so, President Obama would be correct to insist that Mr. Maliki quickly sign a Status of Forces agreement to give our military standard immunities that all our overseas forces have.

It would be appropriate, as Mr. Obama suggested on Friday, to condition American military assistance on concrete steps to establish an all-parties Iraqi government. Prime Minister Maliki should relinquish the positions of minister of defense and interior. He should be pressed to establish the multisectarian national security commission he agreed to after the 2010 elections.

It is time for both American political parties to cease their ritualistic incantations of “no boots on the ground,” which is not the same as “no combat forces.” Of course Americans are reluctant to re-engage in Iraq. Yet it is President Obama’s unhappy duty to educate them about the risks to our interests posed by the unfolding drama in Iraq.

The crisis in Iraq is a flashing warning light about the dangers of a reductionist national security policy that sends a signal of weakness to friends and enemies abroad. The most immediate crisis is in Mesopotamia. But we can be sure that the Taliban in Afghanistan are watching closely to see if the withdrawal of American forces comes to mean American indifference. Beyond the Hindu Kush, east across the Zagros Mountains and to the north of Iraq, hard-eyed men in Beijing. Tehran and Moscow are also calculating the implications of our handling of this crisis. The stakes could not be higher.

Mr. Bremer was U.S. presidential envoy to Iraq in 2003-04.

L. Paul Bremer: Only America Can Prevent a Disaster in Iraq – WSJ.