American Military Occupation, Then and Now

Today marks the 10^th anniversary of the American military invasion into Iraq. The war is over but Iraq’s long march to democracy has just begun. There is no question the US will continue to stay involved in Iraqi affairs for some time, supporting the Iraqi government’s policing and antiterrorism efforts as well as developing other Iraqi civil services. Whether Iraq will be able to break the cycle of poverty despotism and become a democracy of the 21^st century cannot be determined now, but America’s history of military occupations and invasions could lend insight into the challenges Iraq will face in the future. One of the longest military occupations in US history was the occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934. Though Haiti and Iraq are different places and the occupations were almost a century apart, they share certain parallels that reveal the difficulty of reshaping a nation.

The US occupation of Haiti was more similar to The War in Iraq than one might think. The reasons given for the occupation of Haiti in 1915, like the initial justification for the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003, had a more complicated reality to it that was not fully conveyed to the public. Woodrow Wilson’s justification for the occupation was to secure American assets interests in Haiti. Between 1911 and 1915 Haiti’s head of state had changed six times, and there had been no real consistent centralized governance for the past two or three decades. This threatened the American business interests, specifically the fruit companies that had set up operation in Haiti. This was the initial justification, but Wilson saw another threat Haiti posed. There was a German expatriate population living in Haiti that wielded significant influence over the Haiti’s affairs, and Wilson felt they posed a distinct security threat. Many of the Germans living in Haiti had married into the Mulatto elite and were able to purchase huge swaths of land. There were laws barring foreigners from purchasing Haitian land, but since the German expats had married Haitian citizens, they were able to purchase the land. The German government was very aggressive towards the Haitian government, demanding large payments from the Haitian government when German diplomats would get thrown in jail. This was during World War I, and Wilson was weary of any German influence in the Western Hemisphere. Wilson feared that, given Haiti’s inability to govern itself, its incredibly powerful German population, the overly aggressive nature of Germany’s diplomatic relationship with Haiti, and its proximity to the United States, Haiti was a prime target for a German invasion. Germany was looking to invade the US from Latin America, and given Haiti’s instability and its proximity to the US, it would have been a perfect place to mount an invasion. Two years after the US invaded Haiti, the Zimmerman telegram was intercepted, describing Germany’s plans to invade the US through Mexico. Whether Germany really would have invaded Haiti is lost to history, but in 1915 Woodrow Wilson didn’t want to take the chance.

The Marines stayed in Haiti far after the 1919 treaty of Versailles was signed, with the hopes of establishing a legitimate government and putting Haiti on the road to prosperity. Like in Iraq, if the Marines were to have automatically pulled out from Haiti after World War One, Haiti would have continued its cycle of political upheaval*. The Marines who invaded Haiti in 1915 and the US armed forces who invaded Iraq in 2003 faced similar social and political climates when trying to implement a legitimate government. Both countries were ruled largely by small elites that had perpetrated human rights violations against the general population. Both countries were overall very poor but had certain industries (the fruit industry in Haiti and the oil industry in Iraq) that did exceedingly well and were tied to American interests. Both forces invaded and faced little formal military opposition, but there were insurgent non-uniformed groups that rose up and fought hard against each invasion and continued to fight throughout the occupation. In Iraq the Islamic fundamentalist groups presented much difficulty in securing the country, and continue to pose a threat today. In Haiti, the Cacos, armed bands of peasants, fought back against the Marines. The Cacos both suffered and inflicted many casualties in their opposition to the Marine.   

When the Marines left Haiti in 1934, there were positive indicators that Haiti was in a place where it could begin to develop. Though the Marine command had been a difficult that saw much bloodshed, the Marines left having built 1700 km of roads, built many public facilities such as schools, hospitals, bridges, and government buildings, and modernized Haiti’s technological capabilities, making Port Au Prince the first Latin American City to have a phone service with automatic dialing available. Haiti did begin to develop after the Marines left in 1934. The Marines however, did not develop Haiti’s political institutions. Haiti’s greatest need, the need for an effective central government, was not there, and this gave rise to more political chaos and instability. Some hope arose in 1946 with the inauguration of Dumarsais Estime, the first black president of Haiti since the occupation. Dumarsais Estime came to power with hopes to liberalize much of Haiti’s economy. Estime sought to put more black Haitians into civil service positions and fought to break up the Mulatto elite that had run Haiti for so long. Estime’s intentions were good, but his tenure was cut short. Rafael Trujillo, then president of the Dominican Republic, supported a military over throw of Estime. Soon after Estime was exiled, Francios Duvalier became president and seized Haiti with an iron grip and continued the vicious cycle of destruction.

Iraq today is at a critical juncture, they could begin to embrace pluralistic institutions that usher in prosperity, or they could revert back to the same destructive dictatorship that reigned prior to the US invasion. Today Iraq’s future is unknown, but if there is anything we can learn from Haiti the US’s occupation, its that the future of a nation is nothing that there is no magical formula. Certain details must be present to prevent a disaster. There must be a strong central government ruled by the majority of people rather than a narrow elite group. Property rights must be upheld for all members of the society and contracts and agreements must be upheld in a court of law. These are just a few of the necessary requirement needed to avert a disaster, but yet these in and of themselves do not guarantee prosperity. Though Haiti did not have to strongest institutions in 1934, there was hope with the rise of Dumarsais Estime. Estime challenged the Mulatto elite and could have potentially empowered the rural poor. Estime sought to liberalize the Haitian economy with the hopes of developing Haiti. Even though Estime was posed to enact major reforms, his work was undone by the Dominican Republic. There was no way to predict this and there was nothing Haiti could have done to prevent Trujillo’s tyranny from spreading across the boarder. Iraq’s shares its largest boarder with Iran, a dictatorship more similar than not to the Trujillo regime.

I certainly hope that Iraq doesn’t follow in Haiti’s same footsteps. Though prosperity has no specific formula, this does not mean it’s impossible. Japan, Great Britain, Brazil, The United States, and France are just a few nations that broke the cycle keeping many of their citizens in poverty. All of these countries managed to develop into prosperous nations, and Iraq could be next. Iraq does have certain strengths going for it; unlike Haiti Iraq has more than one neighbor. Iraq shares a boarder with Turkey, one of the fastest growing economies in the Middle East. Turkey could help Iraq develop and could possibly help mitigate a threat from east. Iraq is also going through this reformation during the Arab Spring. Whether the hopes of the Arab Spring will be realized is yet to be seen. For better or for worse, the future in places like Syria will certainly influence how Iraq develops. Iraq also has history to learn from. There are many really smart people, both in America and Iraq, who have studied Haiti and studied how nations can transform from tyrannical dictatorships into peaceful democracies. I am certainly not the first person to point out the parallel between Haiti and Iraq, and I am sure many of the efforts in Iraq are aiming to prevent history from repeating itself.

*This is the history that I have read, but there are many different histories on the US occupation of Haiti. Some histories tell a different story, but from what I can tell there is some agreement that the Marines stayed in order to improve Haitian society in some way.