Iraq is a mess. Two presidents have informed us that the Iraq war is over and the mission accomplished. And yet the scions of Al-Qaida are on the march, conquering the country city by city. The U.S. is said to be turning to … Iran for help.
In the ’80s, the United States government armed Iraq with weapons* to war on Iran, a country that had just undergone a revolution and humiliated the U.S. with the hostage crisis. Saddam Hussein was “our friend.”
Now, after the U.S. has executed this Hussein, and destroyed Iraq’s ruling leach class, the Sunni Ba’athist Party — after a jury-rigged government and American-trained army failed to withstand assaults from a core group of true-blue-jihadists in the form of ISIS — the old enemy Iran is being dubbed a savior.
My suspicion is that Iraq cannot and should not be “saved.” It was the construct of British imperialism and the mapmakers of the Versailles Treaty. It is easily divisible into of three countries because there are three distinct groups of people: Sunni populations, Shia populations, and Kurds to the north.
One Iraq or three nations?
Here’s the good news: This isn’t our choice to make.
Sure, the military might of the U.S. could “pacify” Iraq for a time, and arguably for the next 100 years — installing and uninstalling and always complaining about one Iraqi regime after another, providing an occupation force to quell disturbances — only to see the old feuds erupt anew once we leave.
Why do it? Why lose one life to such a mission?
Let Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurds do the fighting and dying … and the deciding.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Recently declassified documents also show U.S. complicity in helping Iraq to target its use of chemical weapons against Iran.
6 replies on “All the Way”
Agreed 100%
And from a strictly military perspective.….….…they all hate us unless we are forking over billions.…. so stand aside.….…let them chop each other up.…..and then, if an enemy of ours prevails.…there’s only one enemy to deal with instead of 3.
Our imperialist skirt is showing again, and it is not pretty.
Is it pride? Vanity? Oil? Let the poor bastards seek their own equilibrium, split into 3 countries, and if one becomes a concentrated safe haven for terrorists intent on doing the US harm, well, we’ll know exactly where to find them.
It’s wrong to assume that Iraq will divide into three countries with no outside interference.
Turks will go after the Kurds.
Iranians will look for a ‘greater Persia’ (or something like that).
If Iraq becomes a safe haven for terrorists, there is one thing we can do, if our leaders have the courage: tell the world that anyone and everyone who sets foot in Iraq (or Afghanistan for that matter) or anywhere else where terrorists operate freely will NEVER set foot in America, even on a tourist visa.
I agree entirely. Why should we act as if we had somehow been appointed the world’s policeman, when the result is only the making of enemies, loss of precious lives, and loss of treasure?
Leave these people alone and they will self destruct. The most important policy we need to have is to get off the foreign oil so that we don’t keep feeding this monster.
Unfortunately, Liberals want to restrict our domestic drilling and Conservatives won’t tolerate effective measures to make our oil use more efficient. And of course, compromise is no longer an option in the United States. Perhaps we will divide sometime just as Iraq is doing since our two sides can’t seem to get along.
Paul, do you ever check out alternative media like infowars.com for analysis? Whenever I hear someone mention Al Qaeda as if it’s not a false flag concoction of the CIA, i.e. that it has a reality independent of that, I just automatically discount the rest of the analysis as falling into the official narrative trap one way or the other. Not to say I’m against your policy prescriptions.