June 14th, 2014 at 9:28 am
Since Cha decided to be a smart-ass and put the following quote into yesterday’s GD, I thought I’d repeat it, together with my own addition:
Who said it?If you’re going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein, you have to go to Baghdad. Once you’ve got Baghdad, it’s not clear what you do with it. It’s not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that’s currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it’s set up by the United States military when it’s there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?
Here’s fun. Take part of that answer:
It’s not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that’s currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or ….. one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists?
It’s not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that’s currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or ….. one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists?
Then wonder as to whether this question ever crossed the minds of the trio of Obama, Clinton, and Power when they decided to destroy Gaddafi in Libya, throw Mubarak to the wolves in Egypt, and wander around for a couple of years saying that Assad had to go. And that’s before we get to the whole “Redline” farce.
What did they call it again? R2P? No, that’s the UN, but we’ve not heard much about that since Libya.
Oh I know – SMART POWER – with added Leftism for increased smarts.
The failures are now coming so rapidly that even the godforsaken WaPo is starting to notice:
FOR YEARS, President Obama has been claiming credit for “ending wars,” when, in fact, he was pulling the United States out of wars that were far from over. Now the pretense is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.
And before we start with the diversionary whine about how this is just about opposition to Obama at home and abroad., let’s note the almost unhinged attacks on Bush that occurred here on KB a few years ago about what he was doing wrong in the ME. Most of those commentators have vanished of course – probably out of embarrassment as The Smartest President Ever checks out.
SPC (5,219 comments) says:
June 14th, 2014 at 10:12 am
SPC (5,219 comments) says:
June 14th, 2014 at 10:12 am
tom hunter, the premise of the Bush regime change policy was that in principle it was not unique to Iraq but was part of US foreign policy to support democracy emerging from dictatorship.
The USA has always paid lip service to supporting democracy (though tolerated anti-communist tyrants), but rarely via troops on the ground to impose a regime change. A substantial difference that was put down to replacing the Taleban for hosting al Qaeda and replacing the Baath regime in Iraq “for having WMD” and breaching UN cease-fire terms to allow inspections.
The problem the US had after Iraq, was that if they could not pre judge what democracy would emerge when supporting the overthrow of tyranny – was that the same applied in any other ME nation, where Islamists would become active in the aftermath.
The alternative is a policy to support the overthrow of tyranny and support democracy except in Moslem nations, because working with tyrants that ruled over Moslems was more convenient. That would be discriminatory. The alternative was/is to then work with any and all tyrants and give up support for democracy.
And the US did not decide the fate of the Mubarak regime, its unpopularity did. The military chose to pose as facilitating the peoples will in removing him enabling an election the MB would win – all to use any subsequent unpopularity with the people to return to power. Sisi was Suleiman’s (intelligence chief under Mubarak) former boss in the military.
As for Syria, that began when unarmed protestors were shot in Damascus. And the West was a minor player in supporting challenge to that regimes continuance – it was more the example of Libya that inspired the Free Syria Army than actual western support for the FSA. Most of the support came from Islamist volunteers and Gulf funding (part of a Sunni vs Shia sectarian divide).
To quote my father “Its Wog on Wog so why do you care? And if you do care ask yourself why the other Wogs don’t”
Dad (former military) has a point. In every global conflict people of European decent risk and lay down their lives to help the week and innocent. Occasionally they are assisted by African’s, Asians, Pakistani etc. but never the Arab. He’ll take money for use of his airspace though. “Scum of the Earth” Again quoting Dad.
I.S.I.S. is not a long term threat.
Syria will reclaim the north off them. Iran will work to ensure Baghdad is held. The Kurds could take Mosul now if given back Kirkuk if they did.
But the problems in Iraq will not go away unless Sunni (and Kurds – Kirkuk as a capital) have autonomy, Sunni once before dismissed an al Qaeda presence from amongst them and would do so again if given autonomy.
The Sunni in Iraq are validly concerned about a Hezbollah type force being built up in Iraq – this speaks to the regime becoming a tyranny or itself being destabilised from within its own Shia ranks.
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