As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hurried to his helicopter ready to take off at the end of a visit to Iraq last year, it was becoming clearer that the Americans had lost control of a country they wished to mold to their liking. Kerry's departure on March 24 was the conclusion of a surprise visit meant to mark the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. A decade earlier the United States had stormed Baghdad, unleashing a brutal, long conflict. Since then, Iraq has not ceased to bleed.
Kerry offered nothing of value on that visit, save the same predictable cliches about Iraq's supposedly successful democracy, as a testament to some imagined triumph of American values.
It was telling that a decade of war was not even enough to assure an ordinary trip for the American diplomat. It was a "surprise" because no amount of coordination between the U.S. embassy, then consisting of 16,000 staff, and the Iraqi government, could guarantee Kerry's safety.