Politics & Power Quote by Ike Skelton

Gratitude, here, is doing heavy political work. Skelton’s line frames the Iraq War less as an elective intervention than as a moral ledger: Iraq “owes a debt” to the very forces operating on its soil. That phrasing doesn’t just praise troops; it shifts agency. The government in Baghdad is cast as a beneficiary, the U.S. and its partners as indispensable caretakers, and the insurgency as the lone spoiler. In one sentence, the messy question of legitimacy gets tidied into a story of rescue and repayment.

The verbs are telling. Coalition forces are “fighting” and “helping,” active and constructive; Iraq is something being “put…back together,” a broken object. That repair metaphor smuggles in an assumption that the country had an intact, preferable form that outside power can restore, sidestepping the argument that war itself can be a solvent, not a glue.

The context is the mid-2000s rhetorical battle to justify a prolonged U.S. presence amid mounting casualties, sectarian violence, and skepticism at home. By invoking “decades of repression,” Skelton anchors the invasion to Saddam-era brutality, making the post-2003 disorder read like aftershock rather than consequence. “American and coalition forces” also spreads responsibility and legitimacy across allies, a subtle inoculation against the charge of unilateralism.

The intent, ultimately, is to stabilize domestic support while encouraging Iraqi political compliance: appreciation isn’t only courtesy, it’s an implied obligation. When policy is contested, a “debt” can be more useful than a debate.