Ship of Fools: War on Iraq, redux

Thread: War on Iraq, redux Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=027417

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

Seems like only a few years since we had flaming discussions about the war that turned out to be a war ON Iraq.

Now the same damn suspects are rattling away about how we are losing the war, and it is time to rebuild the whole effort and do it again.

I strongly recommend the reading of this elegant rant .

And then you can try to answer the questions:

What was the war FOR?

Did any of the objectives, visible or hidden, become "achieved"?

And, why in Hell does anyone in the US or anywhere else believe that war is the way to go? Surely, we learned something, way back in the dim distant past? Is there no adult left who can avoid making the same tired, bloody mistakes?

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

Old military maxim.

'We must do something!
This is something.
So let's do this'

The war on Iraq was illogical. Therefore it has had counter-productive effects. As well as costing a lot of lives for no good reason.

YMMV

Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Old military maxim.

'We must do something!
This is something.
So let's do this'

The war on Iraq was illogical. Therefore it has had counter-productive effects. As well as costing a lot of lives for no good reason.

YMMV

Tony Blair recently admitted that 'they' hadn't anticipated inter-Sunni/Shia hostility. Dick Cheney said the two groups would welcome the allies as liberators and unite. Didn't they have any well informed advisors?

I wonder how well Western style democracy can ever translate to countries where political identity is tribal (Afghanistan, Yugoslavia) or religious (Iraq, Syria) or indeed any thing other than class/wealth based.

Also we seem to ignore that fact that one of the roles of authoritarian dictators is to force together people who would rather live apart. It's hardly surprising that when they are removed the country ends up in civil war.

Posted by Tom Day (# 3630) on :

I might not be thinking it through properly, and being simplistic, but is there any reason why Iraq has to stay as one country? During the 2000's we helped in the Balkans by splitting countries up. Is there any reason why Iraq can't go the same way? And if it did, would it be a bad thing?

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

There's no reason that any country should stay as one country. Wars are fought sometimes for ridiculous reasons.

Probably they should have listened to Syria before Gulf War 2, which told the USA and Europe that it didn't want radicals on its borders. Israel will probably end up bombing. Just wait and see. A real problem, endless it seems, is to support a despot because to do so is good for business.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
What was the war FOR?

Did any of the objectives, visible or hidden, become "achieved"?

We can look at George W. Bush's Ultimatum to Saddam Hussein just before the official start of the war for the stated reasons for the war. This only helps us if we are reasonably confident that Bush is being honest (a dubious proposition at best), but it does constitute a kind of "mission statement" for the whole war.

quote:
Intelligene gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.

The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.

The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.

<snip>

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.

I've highlighted what Bush claims are the major goals of the war. To sum them up as bullet points, they are:

Eliminate Iraq's vast stockpile of WMDs
Eliminate al Qæda's (and other terrorist's) foothold in Iraq
Create a "prosperous and free" Iraq

So even grading the Bush administration by its own stated goals, the whole thing was an Epic Failure.

Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tom Day:
I might not be thinking it through properly, and being simplistic, but is there any reason why Iraq has to stay as one country? During the 2000's we helped in the Balkans by splitting countries up. Is there any reason why Iraq can't go the same way? And if it did, would it be a bad thing?

I don't think we split the countries up - they split on their own and we tried to stop them killing each other - and didn't do very well.

But it's a bit like a divorce - it's how you divide up the stuff that creates problems: who gets access to the sea?, who gets mineral resources?, how are national armies (and treasuries) divided?

Also as in Afghanistan, I believe, Yugoslavia or when India/Pakistan split what do you do about members of group A living in B's heartland and vice versa.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

After Iraq War 1 , when Saddam's forces were expelled from Kuwait in 1990, it was said that entering Iraq, and over-throwing the Baathist regime would not be advisable as it may well be replaced with something worse.
I'm not sure what changed to make the US think this would no longer be the case 13 years later.

All war is a failure of diplomacy . If we are to seek success within that failure then , re. the Iraq campaigns , Kuwait was indeed liberated, and the removal of the Baathist regime was later achieved . Most would agree the cost has been way too high , and it's a price many in the Middle East will continue to pay for the foreseeable future.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

There are so many ironies about the Iraq war. One is that the Ba'athists were secularists, of course, very corrupt ones. But anyway, by removing a secular party (by means of de-Ba'athification), they took away a layer of secular people in Iraq. This was a dangerous move.

Two, the war empowered Iran, and the Maliki govt became enmeshed with Iran. Was this foreseen?

Three, de-Ba'athification produced groups of very angry former soldiers and others, who were now unemployed, and resentful, and some of them fought against the West.

Four, even those Sunni tribesmen who eventually turned against Al-Quaeda (the 'Awakening'), were eventually neglected by Maliki, and they seem to have welcomed ISIS. Perhaps they will now be bombed, which will certainly improve the mood amongst Sunni people.

Well, one can go on. The moral is, beware of unintended consequences! These include a rampant ISIS, a powerful Iran, and Iraq in ruins, and of course, many thousands dead.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
Tony Blair recently admitted that 'they' hadn't anticipated inter-Sunni/Shia hostility. Dick Cheney said the two groups would welcome the allies as liberators and unite. Didn't they have any well informed advisors?

I think it's worrying that anyone who aspires to leadership that kind of level even NEEDS an advisor to tell them something like this.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I've highlighted what Bush claims are the major goals of the war. To sum them up as bullet points, they are:

Eliminate Iraq's vast stockpile of WMDs
Eliminate al Qæda's (and other terrorist's) foothold in Iraq
Create a "prosperous and free" Iraq

So even grading the Bush administration by its own stated goals, the whole thing was an Epic Failure.

The first two of those goals, of course, couldn't possibly be achieved, other than by the equivalent of selling tiger repellent. The stockpile didn't exist, and the rigorously secular Iraqi government was never a foothold for terrorists... until, of course, WE got there.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Two, the war empowered Iran, and the Maliki govt became enmeshed with Iran. Was this foreseen?

Again (and I'll shut up after this), any person who wasn't in "all Muslims look alike to me" mode should have foreseen it. Iran is Shiite - by far the most important Shiite country. The majority of Iraq is Shiite. Maliki was a Shia dissident when Saddam Hussein was busy being emphatically NOT Shia and suppressing both Shiite and Kurdish movements.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
After Iraq War 1 , when Saddam's forces were expelled from Kuwait in 1990, it was said that entering Iraq, and over-throwing the Baathist regime would not be advisable as it may well be replaced with something worse.
I'm not sure what changed to make the US think this would no longer be the case 13 years later.

Yeah, that position was argued extensively by the U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time. What was his name again? Oh, right. Yeah, it would be interesting to know what changed his mind.

Fuck you, Dick [Cheney]!

Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on :

This is not the west's waer stand aside

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

I think you can go back to the forced formation of modern Iraq in 1921. Britain imposed a Hāshimite monarchy on Iraq and defined the territorial limits of Iraq without taking into account the politics of the different ethnic and religious groups in the country,

You are talking about hundreds of years of animosity.

Iraq has long been doomed to be a failed state. The Enduring Freedom campaign just hastened its demise. We would have had the same result if Saddam Hussein stayed in power until he died a natural death.

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

I take no satisfaction is saying that I have been predicting something like this for over a decade, and I'm no Middle East expert. We've been working up to this ever since Sykes and Picot drew a bunch of random lines on a map 98 years ago, and I really doubt there's anything military the US or NATO can do to stop the snowball at this point. The worst-case scenario is a Muslim version of the Thirty Years War, with modern weaponry.

Posted by MarsmanTJ (# 8689) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tom Day:
I might not be thinking it through properly, and being simplistic, but is there any reason why Iraq has to stay as one country? During the 2000's we helped in the Balkans by splitting countries up. Is there any reason why Iraq can't go the same way? And if it did, would it be a bad thing?

Turkey doesn't want an independent Kurdistan, so the USA is never going to disagree with their most major ally in the region on that subject. If Kurdistan had been made independent shortly after Iraq II, it would probably be a thriving economic power in the region by now.

[ 21. June 2014, 08:09: Message edited by: MarsmanTJ ]

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Old military maxim.

'We must do something!
This is something.
So let's do this'

Current Western mantra:
We must never again stand by and do nothing ( Rwanda, Srebrenica).
It’s happening again.
Let’s do nothing again.

I opposed the Iraq intervention from the beginning and, like just about everyone else right now, I am intensely skeptical about the likelihood of a repeated intervention’s doing any good.

At the same time, we have to face the fact that we are once again witnessing atrocities on a vast scale, with the Sunni ISIS/ISIL massacring hundreds of Shiites, and once again there is very little evidence of sympathy or indignation or inclination to think about how the outside world might ameliorate the situation (apart from the therapeutic satisfaction for ourselves of being able to say, “I told you so!”)

Posted by Curious Kitten (# 11953) on :

Some of the reason that sensible people don't want to get involved is that we know we don't know enough about the situation and a lasting solutions need to come from with in.

One of the guys I went to Uni with had a long rant in 2008 where he predicated very accurately what would happen post UK and US withdrawal. His personal obsession was the Troubles and what lesson could be learnt from them and applied to the violent religious divisions between Sunni and Shia in his own country.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

Does all this imply that we have to let the Equivalent of the Thirty Years' War happen, in the hope that a settlement resulting from exhaustion will allow the Sunni/Shia thing (and the Kurds/Alawites/Ismailis/Baha'i...) to settle into a more-or-less peaceful ability to live more quietly with each other?

IOW, is this the beginning of the Wars of the Muslim Reformation?

And can the "Christians" be persuaded to stay out of it?

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

IOW, is this the beginning of the Wars of the Muslim Reformation?

And can the "Christians" be persuaded to stay out of it?

I had exactly the same thought.

On your second point - sadly, I doubt it [Frown]

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

And see how Obama is starting up? 300 "advisers" being inserted.

Remind you of anything?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpfTKcm8lxo

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Old military maxim.

'We must do something!
This is something.
So let's do this'

Current Western mantra:
We must never again stand by and do nothing ( Rwanda, Srebrenica).
It’s happening again.
Let’s do nothing again.

I opposed the Iraq intervention from the beginning and, like just about everyone else right now, I am intensely skeptical about the likelihood of a repeated intervention’s doing any good.

At the same time, we have to face the fact that we are once again witnessing atrocities on a vast scale, with the Sunni ISIS/ISIL massacring hundreds of Shiites, and once again there is very little evidence of sympathy or indignation or inclination to think about how the outside world might ameliorate the situation (apart from the therapeutic satisfaction for ourselves of being able to say, “I told you so!”)

It's more complex than that, isn't it? Sunni tribesmen are complaining that Maliki has been imprisoning and torturing their young men in their thousands, and has reneged on an agreement to integrate the 'Awakening' groups into government and military.

It seems impossible to verify this; but it seems significant that some of these groups - who fought against Al Quaeda, and with the Americans - have joined with various Ba'ath party members, ex-officers, and Sunni tribal leaders, to oppose Maliki. Of course, Maliki has Iran behind him, so the Sunni tribes are feeling very jumpy.

It makes it very difficult for the West to intervene - for example, if the US starts bombing Sunni villages, where the young men seem to be currently driving around in trucks brandishing guns, the whole place could erupt.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

From a recent discussion (last night) with a historian. He said that a common perspective of military historians is that the problem with Iraq was the failure to destroy and humiliate the Iraqi forces in both invasions/wars. That it is impossible to put reconstruction and democracy before the destruction of the enemy's morale and willingness to continue. With the accompanying problem that the western countries' public and journalists would not tolerate the level of violence required to do this. He also added that it is doubtful that either of Japan and Germany would have become democratic without their total defeats.

He also suggested the ancients understood this when they always killed all of the men, adopted some of the children, and enslaved the women.

I was left with a rather sick feeling.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
The worst-case scenario is a Muslim version of the Thirty Years War, with modern weaponry.

Many will die, many more will live in hell. And this will continue to be asymmetric so the potential for self correction is even less than the Thirty Years War.

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
The worst-case scenario is a Muslim version of the Thirty Years War, with modern weaponry.
Many will die, many more will live in hell. And this will continue to be asymmetric so the potential for self correction is even less than the Thirty Years War.

So Vietnam on steroids.

Nice.
[brick wall]

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Alex, for your reference Thirty Years War (via an owly link as the wiki url had characters the Ship BB didn't recognise)

Posted by Alex Cockell (# 7487) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Alex, for your reference Thirty Years War (via an owly link as the wiki url had characters the Ship BB didn't recognise)

Oh bloody hell.

And with nuclear weapons...

So this has become even more likely... Threads

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

I can't see how a new Sunni Arab state won't emerge straddling eastern Syria and western Iraq. It could unite with Saudi. De facto would anyway. Iran will use proxies, not nukes that don't exist yet and won't use them when she's got them. Saudi and Jordan will then get them at least. Qatar and Bahrain too. Escalating stalemate. Aye, 30 years. Wars and rumours of wars.

[ 22. June 2014, 09:29: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

Posted by GCabot (# 18074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I take no satisfaction is saying that I have been predicting something like this for over a decade, and I'm no Middle East expert. We've been working up to this ever since Sykes and Picot drew a bunch of random lines on a map 98 years ago, and I really doubt there's anything military the US or NATO can do to stop the snowball at this point. The worst-case scenario is a Muslim version of the Thirty Years War, with modern weaponry.

It is a popular misconception that Sykes and Picot scribbled a bunch of random lines on a map to form the borders of the modern Middle East. Rather, the borders are largely a function of prior Ottoman administrative demarcations. So, if have to blame someone in regard to Middle Eastern borders, blame the Turks.

Posted by GCabot (# 18074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
From a recent discussion (last night) with a historian. He said that a common perspective of military historians is that the problem with Iraq was the failure to destroy and humiliate the Iraqi forces in both invasions/wars. That it is impossible to put reconstruction and democracy before the destruction of the enemy's morale and willingness to continue. With the accompanying problem that the western countries' public and journalists would not tolerate the level of violence required to do this. He also added that it is doubtful that either of Japan and Germany would have become democratic without their total defeats.

He also suggested the ancients understood this when they always killed all of the men, adopted some of the children, and enslaved the women.

I was left with a rather sick feeling.

This is a more complex issue. The U.S. certainly inflicted total defeat on the Iraqi armed forces. The problem when you are dealing with an insurgency, however, is that it is far more difficult to inflict that kind of total demoralization when dealing with non-state actors, who are usually hidden and indistinguishable from the general populace. To do so would require massive collateral damage that most nations would find unacceptable.

Posted by Tukai (# 12960) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

IOW, is this the beginning of the Wars of the Muslim Reformation?

And can the "Christians" be persuaded to stay out of it?
I had exactly the same thought.

On your second point - sadly, I doubt it

I doubt it too, especially when there's oil in them there hills!

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

There can never be a Muslim reformation.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Martin, why do you think there can't be a Muslim Reformation?

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Well C k..., it can certainly be transcended, but that's rare, a minority minority pursuit, a second or third order minority pursuit in Christianity and always will be. Islam cannot attempt to revert to a faith once delivered, it's already there. Not enough for the Salafists but that's true of any religion. It has as much breadth and depth as any other tradition based faith that does not have a radical core. It has unchallengeable premises that cannot be addressed, questioned, just like they all do. And it works. It is far more naturally in tune with human nature than Christianity. Muslim cultures are definitely that, whereas Christian ones aren't meaningfully Christian.

My boss is an excellent Britistani Muslim. A perfect blend of cultures. He's mystified by liberal Christianity, the fact that we don't live by the text apparently. I couldn't help it, I said that life isn't a Volkswagen in need of a manual.

It is VERY easy to critique Islam anthropologically, forensically, but is offensive to do so at all in any way ...

Let me put it this way, tradition based religion is self justifying patriarchy. And at least Islam is honest in that you CAN kill and be a good Muslim.

Inshallah.

[ 22. June 2014, 15:38: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GCabot:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
From a recent discussion (last night) with a historian. He said that a common perspective of military historians is that the problem with Iraq was the failure to destroy and humiliate the Iraqi forces in both invasions/wars. That it is impossible to put reconstruction and democracy before the destruction of the enemy's morale and willingness to continue. With the accompanying problem that the western countries' public and journalists would not tolerate the level of violence required to do this. He also added that it is doubtful that either of Japan and Germany would have become democratic without their total defeats.

He also suggested the ancients understood this when they always killed all of the men, adopted some of the children, and enslaved the women.

I was left with a rather sick feeling.
This is a more complex issue. The U.S. certainly inflicted total defeat on the Iraqi armed forces. The problem when you are dealing with an insurgency, however, is that it is far more difficult to inflict that kind of total demoralization when dealing with non-state actors, who are usually hidden and indistinguishable from the general populace. To do so would require massive collateral damage that most nations would find unacceptable.

Apparently not re total defeat. The former army people went home and changed their clothes joined the insurgency. They found that blowing up some Americans installing infrastructure was far more effective than pretending they could field an army and doing it like "civilized nations" do. Insurgencies work. If American, Europe and allies want to win in Iraq, they will have to kill a lot of people and destroy a lot of infrastructure thereby killing civilians indirectly.

The biggest question of course is how this mess occurred, which probably contains lessons about multinational corporations supported by military, resource extraction, alliances with governments who assist and partake of profit, and a citizenry which feels hard done by. Iraq was an American ally under Saddamn originally.

Our understanding must take into account that present insurgencies are seen as legitimate by the people who promote them and actively pursue them, as responses to prior western misconduct, from colonialism and imperialism to unfair commercial and corporate structures arising from globalization and trade. Then we have infinitely repeatable images of specific misconduct like prisoner abuse and torture. It all makes the active retaliation legitimate for insurgents I think.

Posted by GCabot (# 18074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Apparently not re total defeat. The former army people went home and changed their clothes joined the insurgency. They found that blowing up some Americans installing infrastructure was far more effective than pretending they could field an army and doing it like "civilized nations" do. Insurgencies work. If American, Europe and allies want to win in Iraq, they will have to kill a lot of people and destroy a lot of infrastructure thereby killing civilians indirectly.

I am unclear as to whom you are referring to. The Iraqi military under Saddam was utterly vanquished and completely demoralized during the war. This is a significant reason why the current Iraqi army is so pitifully ineffective. By and large, members of the armed forces were not fanatics; rather, they were ordinary people without any better prospects of making a living under Saddam's regime.

The ex-military forces arising right now are doing so because they feel marginalized by the Shia government. They do not represent any significant part of Saddam's prior military, however, and had little impact on the Iraqi insurgency, until now. Therefore, their current participation should not be considered evidence that the U.S. failed to inflict enough destruction on the Iraqi military during the war.

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

The one good thing that came out of the Thirty Years War was that the European powers decided never to fight over religion again. They didn't have the firepower to destroy civilization, however. I'm genuinely scared, and if I thought there was something the West could do that wouldn't just inflame the situation, I'd be for it. I can't see anything.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Scared of what TtO?

Agreed, the West cannot possibly stop Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi funding ISIS.

So it must negotiate with them all. There must be a peace offensive, not a USAF one. The only possible outcome is a new state.

The Sunni just want their rights. It's too late to maintain Iraq and Syria.

Interesting times ...

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

I knew the bloody Russians would have to stick their oar in.

But as in Syria and Ukraine, it won't be decisive.

Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on :

I may have missed in my quick scan of posts any reference to the wider implications of the Iraq situation. Particularly, the connection of Iran to Iraq could be the start of a major middle east conflagration drawing in the world's major powers.

I would also suggest that at the heart of the unrest is money in terms of oil profits. Money which can be related to territorial assets will drive the outcome.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Nah, everyone's more sensible than that.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

The announcement this morning by ISIS of the formation of a new caliphate was great news to me.

One leader, one country, one easily manageable target package for the Trident D-5's.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
I may have missed in my quick scan of posts any reference to the wider implications of the Iraq situation. Particularly, the connection of Iran to Iraq could be the start of a major middle east conflagration drawing in the world's major powers.

Although in this case it seems Russia and America are now uneasily on the same side in that they are both trying to prop up Maliki's government.

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Nah, everyone's more sensible than that.

That's what they said in 1914.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

This stream is not that 100 year old one. Everyone is on the same side except the Arabs. Ramadan should quiet things down a bit.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

I note that some Sunni groups are trying to distance themselves from the IS (formerly ISIS or ISIL) on the grounds that the dissenters do not want to be THAT extreme. I doubt this will stop the flow of funds and weapons from whoever is supplying the IS.

Sounds a bit like "We're Not All Like That", the catch-phrase of Christians who try not to look like the anti-everything brand of fundamentalist Christian.

As Dan Savage said in the context of Xians saying they don't ALL hate gays: (paraphrasing): "Don't tell me that. I KNOW you aren't like that. Go tell the guys you oppose. Telling me won't change anything"

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Although some Sunni groups fought against Al Quaeda, and with the Americans - particularly the 'Awakening' groups. Many journalists are reporting that these groups are fed up with Maliki, who they accuse of ignoring them, or worse, and they are therefore not opposing ISIS.

Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on :

I have found a most interesting program on Moyers & Company that addresses the question of American (or any outside) involvement in the mid-east.
LINK HERE

It contains two highly readable essays; one by T.E. Laurence in 1920 and one by Bill Moyers, There is also a three minute video worth watching.

It seems that the US is poised to repeat the mistakes made by the Treaty of Versailles in the blunders by the same groups that are working on a solution today; the military and the government bureaucrats.

Is it possible that they could listen o Laurence's plea to "listen to the people"?

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Although some Sunni groups fought against Al Quaeda, and with the Americans - particularly the 'Awakening' groups. Many journalists are reporting that these groups are fed up with Maliki, who they accuse of ignoring them, or worse, and they are therefore not opposing ISIS.

It is worth remembering that Isis have somehow got secular Baathists on their side.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Although some Sunni groups fought against Al Quaeda, and with the Americans - particularly the 'Awakening' groups. Many journalists are reporting that these groups are fed up with Maliki, who they accuse of ignoring them, or worse, and they are therefore not opposing ISIS.
It is worth remembering that Isis have somehow got secular Baathists on their side.

Yes, by all accounts, a strange coalition of ex-army officers, jihadists, some of the Awakening groups, tribal chiefs, and no doubt other Sunni grouplets. It seems to show how much Maliki has alienated the Sunni, when the hope was that he would integrate them into the govt and military. But maybe this has been impossible.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

Many of the objectives thought possible at the time of the 03 intervention have proved impossible . Iraq was supposed to have been liberated from a tyrannical dictator and rebuilt into democratic and vibrant post-WW2 Germany or Japan .
After this failed to happen the truth was kept from the Western public . Now it appears we must play devil's advocate, letting Iran in to tackle the insurgents, as we have lost the will to try and clear up the mess ourselves .

What about the future of this region and it's inhabitants in 20 or 30 years time ? Very few Western observers seem to want to hazard a guess on that one now.

Posted by GCabot (# 18074) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Although some Sunni groups fought against Al Quaeda, and with the Americans - particularly the 'Awakening' groups. Many journalists are reporting that these groups are fed up with Maliki, who they accuse of ignoring them, or worse, and they are therefore not opposing ISIS.
It is worth remembering that Isis have somehow got secular Baathists on their side.
Yes, by all accounts, a strange coalition of ex-army officers, jihadists, some of the Awakening groups, tribal chiefs, and no doubt other Sunni grouplets. It seems to show how much Maliki has alienated the Sunni, when the hope was that he would integrate them into the govt and military. But maybe this has been impossible.

I seriously doubt that this cooperation will last. There have already been reports of infighting between the two groups. It is only a matter of time before the situation devolves further.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0