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.