US cuts loose from Iraq war still hampered by its legacy

The United States has cut loose from its long war in Iraq aiming to meet other challenges, particularly in Asia, but is still hampered by the war's legacy and the continuing conflict in Afghanistan.

With Washington pulling out the last of its troops from Iraq, which numbered 170,000 at their peak in 2007, US officials need no longer worry about combat deaths there and may have a freer hand in conducting foreign policy.

But the United States is still grappling with the financial fallout of the nine-year war as well as Iran's rise as a regional menace, analysts said. Nor has the anti-Americanism it helped spawn throughout the region evaporated.

And Iraq itself still requires considerable American resources and energy.

Despite the troop pullout, the US ambassador in Baghdad, James Jeffrey, said US spending would top $6 billion in 2012 in Iraq, which will still host the largest American embassy in the world and a mission of up to 16,000 people.

However, the costs are a far cry from the hundreds of billions of dollars Washington spent to deploy troops there and from the tens of thousands of US dead and wounded suffered.

"There is no question that the withdrawal from Iraq gives us flexibility at home and abroad," said Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

"It's a huge plus, but we have another weight still on us and and it's a huge weight -- Afghanistan. And you would think that 50 percent of the problem would be gone when we're out of Iraq but it doesn't really work that way."

With the withdrawal from Iraq, he told AFP, the United States has transferred its energies to dealing with not only Afghanistan but also its neighbors, particularly Pakistan.

"You have constant crises in relations with the countries there (in the region) and that just eats away at the decision time and at the power," Gelb said.

The United States has lurched from one crisis to another in Pakistan, the latest over NATO strikes that killed 24 Pakistani troops on the border with Afghanistan.

"When you're fighting a major war (in Afghanistan), you can't be really refocused on Asia," Gelb said.

Writing in Foreign Policy magazine last month, Clinton said the United States "stands at a pivot point" as the Iraq war "winds down" and US troops begin withdrawing from Afghanistan.

All US and NATO combat forces are due out of Afghanistan by 2014.

She said the United States, over the next decade, would "lock in a substantially increased investment -- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise -- in the Asia-Pacific region."

The United States is tightening ties with the countries of the region amid concerns over a more assertive China.

Gelb said the refocus on Asia amounts to "just words" for now because US leaders still "spend most of their foreign policy time on the Afghan war." And the United States is still struggling with Iraq's legacy in particular.

"We destroyed Iraq as a counterweight to Iran. That's a big minus," Gelb said.

"Secondly. we weakened ourselves economically. We had no war tax to pay for the (Iraq) war. We have no war tax to pay for the Afghan war. And a good deal of the debt the county has incurred comes from those two wars," he said.

Also, anti-American sentiment lingers as Washington has invaded not just one Muslim land, but two, he said. Such sentiment, makes it all the harder for Washington to deal with Arab and Muslim governments.

Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst with the Brookings Institution, said he is not so sure the United States will have more time now to deal with other pressing issues, such as global warming or energy needs or strategic challenges in Asia.

"You could argue the Iraq legacy will continue because it is one of the reasons why we feel poor and beaten down as a nation a bit these days, and one of the reasons why I think our focus for a while is going to be more inward," he said.

Nonetheless, he said, the United States remains a superpower with an impressive and proven military.