“Has American Policy Created a Monster in Iraq?”
Of course GW did. Its exactly what I predicted when the neocons were beating the war drums to overthrow Saddam. As odious and brutal as he was that is exactly what is needed in those god forsaken mideast countries. He was no threat and was contained, As a bonus he was a bulwark against Iranian adventurism.Between Bush and the bumbling Obama just look at the freaking ISIS cluster democrat we’ve got now!
The Kurds in every region are our friends, or at least not our enemies and are HATED by our enemies: Iran and Syria!
I have yet to hear a cogent explanation of why I should give a sh*t about the governance of former Turkish vilayets such as Basra, Mosul, and Baghdad.
Especially since we allowed the slaughter of 4000 of our irreplaceable heroes, the maiming of 30 000 others, and the sinking of rivers of cash in their worthless desert.
For all I care, they can kill each other for the next 10 000 years.
Being classically educated even the Founding Fathers would have known better than to get involved in ME tribal squabbles. Unfortunately most modern politicians can barely remember how to spell their own names.
Also don’t forget that with the USSR defunct the International Bankers needed a new unending global conflict and their lackey, Daddy Bush, gave it to them (and us).
Yes, Iraq is now a satellite of Iran.
In agreement with Bones.
I should have known it was going to be a disaster as soon as Hillary supported the war. Everything ... absolutely everything ... she touches turns to feces.
What?!
There wasn’t a monster in Iraq before?
Oh, yeah, that was the short period from the surge under G.W. Bush to when Obama unilaterally pulled out U.S. forces...
The Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration, or Mandatory Iraq (Arabic: الانتداب البريطاني على العراق al-Intidāb al-Brīṭānī ‘Alá al-‘Irāq), was created in 1921, following the 1920 Iraqi Revolt against the proposed British Mandate of Mesopotamia, and enacted via the 1922 Anglo-Iraqi Treaty. Faisal ibn Husayn, who had been proclaimed King of Syria by a Syrian National Congress in Damascus in March 1920, was ejected by the French in July of the same year. Faisal was then granted by the British the territory of Iraq, to rule it as a kingdom, with the British Royal Air Force (RAF) retaining certain military control, though de facto; the territory remained under British administration until 1932.[1]
The civil government of postwar Iraq was headed originally by the High Commissioner, Sir Percy Cox, and his deputy, Colonel Arnold Wilson. British reprisals after the murder of a British officer in Najaf failed to restore order.
The most striking problem facing the British was the growing anger of the nationalists, who continued to fight against the imposition of British authority. British administration had yet to be established in Iraqi Kurdistan.
100 hundred years later, we are still involved in fighting that the Brits set up!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Iraq
There are three distinct people groups in Iraq who don’t want to get along.
The Kurds want to draw a line in the north and be left alone.
US policy is to befriend them and then let them down. It’s how we roll.
There are three distinct people groups in Iraq who don’t want to get along.
The Kurds want to draw a line in the north and be left alone.
US policy is to befriend them and then let them down. It’s how we roll.
Obama’s foreign policy created a monster. not America's
“If there is a symbol of U.S. policy gone awry...”
No, it is a symbol of different tribes in the ME’s inability to live and let live. For every armchair general out there decrying our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq just think of how much fun Osama and Saddam would be having with Rocketman right now.
This may all boil down to the man Bush selected as the new replacement for Saddam Hussein.
He was too cozy with Iran.
It now appears Iran has way too much control in Iraq.
I tried to be supportive of Bush in the Iraq theater. He may have sold us out all along.
These moderate Republicans can’t think much clearer than the Democrats can.
We pile on Obama for making an agreement with Iran that will see them get nukes and the ability to deliver them.
We haven’t piled on sufficiently, me included, to Bush for not putting a die hard nationalist in Iraq. We very well could be seeing Iran against the Kurds, not Iraq or just Iraq.
Bush didn’t suddenly become an idiot the first day after his second term ended.
Sadly...
No matter what you do for or to a muslim, at the end of the day, you are still the infidel and he will still hate you.
Nevertrump Review is just getting around to asking the questions Trump started answering publically in 2015.
There have always been plenty of monsters in the Middle East.
We could blame the Ottomans, the Brits, the Soviets, the French for harboring Khomeni, Jimmuh Carter for handing Iran over to Khomeni, Bush for taking out Saddam, Obama for shunting aside the duly elected pro-American Iraq Prime Minister (Iyad Allawi) to install the pro-Iranian Nouri al-Maliki, releasing the worst monsters from prison, and then pulling out and throwing the country and our allies to the wolves.
But regardless of whatever external actors do, they do in a nest of vipers that is the Middle East. The place is packed with bad actors, no matter what anyone does.