How old was that guy during Gulf War I?
I quite agree the Shia of Iraq are not all wonderful people. In fact, neither are the Sunni of Iraq. They were the main support of Saddam and now of ISIS.
But my point was simply that we encouraged the Shia (and Kurds) to rebel against Saddam in 1990 because it was convenient for us. Then we walked away, with the minor exception of the no-fly zones. Does anybody really think they would have rebelled as they did if they’d known we were going to leave Saddam in power to come after them? I have no idea what, if any, promises were made to them.
Would the Sunnis have fought alongside us in the Awakening if they’d known we’d leave them to the Shia?
My point is not that we should have remained and propped up any of these groups. That could only really be done by some sort of neo-colonialism, which of course would create its own, probably worse, problems. We’d almost certainly wind up in conflict with the very people we went in to protect.
My point is actually that we shouldn’t make promises we have no intention of keeping. When the Shia and Kurds rebelled we should have publicly notified them we weren’t planning to hang around and support them. Same with the Sunni a decade or two later.
That would have been the honorable thing to do.
No democratic country has honor. If only because group A gets voted out and group B feels no obligation to honor group A’s commitments.
BTW, I left out the biggest single betrayal by America in the 20th. South Vietnam. That being a prime example. Democrats felt zero obligation to honor commitments made by Nixon. So they didn’t.