Don't Forget How We Destroyed Iraq. No Victory There

I'm gonna go with ATW here. I don't see the Middle East rising and becoming a solid world power. The situation is a lot different from Eastern Asia. There is very little hope in my eyes for the Middle East in the future. There could be some slight improvements over time but it will always be significantly behind most of the rest of the world.

 

I walked downtown today, thinking I would be part of a celebratory mob with lots of cute girls to kiss, numerous hats to throw in the air, and lots of tickertape. I just got a bunch of odd looks and one guy yelled at me to get out of the street.

 

I disagree. In order to "destroy" Iraq, there'd had to be something there to destroy.

 

Don't forget we had our own 'terrorists' of our own (lol as they would be called nowadays), the Boxer rebellion, tons of warlords, incredibly harsh crackdowns via a completely communist government, and I'm fairly sure S Korea had a dictatorship some where around that time as well. 60 years ago people could well be talking about how Confucianism is holding China back, as it has done for the past 2000 years. The situations now are completely different, but the situation of East Asia in the period of WWII and Middle East now aren't that different.

The two regions are on different trajectories now, there's no doubt about it, I'm just saying you'll never know when a country's government can actually do what a government is supposed to do and lead the country to economic progress. The Muslims were at one point responsible for many scientific thinking and progress (heck the numbers on the keyboards we are typing are Arabic, far more efficient at calculations than Roman numerals).

 

Great article by the OP, and agree completely with the convenient self congratulating narrative that's taking place over Iraq. If we learn anything from Iraq, I hope its that we demonstrate restraint when calls are being made to resolve conflicts militarily and that we conduct critical analysis of political figures, particularly those that trumpet calls to war.

As for points raised by other posters, I tend to agree that at least in the near term, I dont see the middle east posing an imminent threat to US primacy. A more realistic outcome in the near term is the possibility of the middle east exercising its own best interests diplomatically, even when those interests conflict with our own. This is going to be an ongoing challenge for the US to come to terms with, and although past administrations may have been able to ensure foreign entities operate in a servile fashion to US demands, subsequent regimes may not be as cooperative. I still expect the middle east to serve US demands for the most part, but could very well see them stray in key areas, most notably Israel.

A more significant threat to US primacy and global stability is the growth of the Chinese economy. As China grows, it's only natural that it begins to operate in its own best interest, which includes procuring foreign resources and engaging with foreign markets (invariably competing with US resources and needs).

As the above dynamic progresses, the question is going to be how the polity (and populace) within both nations responds- will both nations have responsible, mature leadership that understands the give and take of world affairs? or will their political establishment fall prey to fear mongering, xenophobia, influence by factions and interest groups with narrow agendas, and perhaps elect (or in the case of China, be designated) an impetuous, impulsive leader? And if this occurs simultaneously?

I'm not trying to sensationalize the future of this country, I just tend to view our political establishment and segments of our population as driving us in the direction of the latter rather than the former.

 

You've been on a roll lately vaids - great post.

 

False weapons of mass destruction propoganda. Waste of tax payers money. It was supposed to save lives by preventing WMD being deployed, but more Americans end up losing their lives. All we got is this huge war debt, after Bush left office.

 

Liberating Iraq from Saddam's tyranny with a coalition of the Free world was the right thing to do at the time. Eliminating the Army and the Civil system was the damning mistake. It was a mistake of overreaching for the idealized goal rather than compromising for the achievable goal. It was a mistake of hubris; borne from the military's overwhelming performance in destroying things, it gave the Administration too much confidence that they could build things. But the two were not related.

 

But that was never our stated intention, and it certainly was ancillary to other goals after the WMD baloney was exposed. Even if it was an original objective, it certainly seems interesting that we'd care about deposing a dictator (who just happened to be actively resisting our interventions) in a particularly oil-rich nation while backing others of a similar bent the world over.

The sentiment you give is great and all, but it's bull**** nonetheless.

 

That's what I was thinking at the time. It was a very liberal, international, one world, step forward toward a democratic planet. More Bush 41 and Colin Powell than Bush 43. I think the course of the war later and the demonization of Bush/Cheney in general have colored the view somewhat. It's revisionist to dream but if we had taken Baghdad, co-opted the Army with our own pay and equipment, set upon the country with civil overseers and set up elections to try and achieve a moderately corrupt, semi-functioning democratic nation of competing ethnic parties, the action might now be seen as a template for the democratization of many autocratic regimes.

Remember Saddam did invade Kuwait, did massacre his own people, did defy the UN, did have a set dynasty of rapist and torturers in place with no hope for the Iraqi people to rebel on their own. If the UN didn't do it, the hell would continue indefinitely.

 

It wasn't worth it. The only way it would have been worth it is if we found a huge WMD cache that proved we went to war for the right reasons. But, all Bush and his cronies did was look at the intelligence and turn it into a reason for why we had to go to war when the intelligence wasn't even sound. All it did was upset the balance of power over there and gave Iran the upper hand. Now, we got to go to war with Iran within the next decade and it's pretty much a sure thing there will be a war the way our uncompromising foreign policy works in the name of our own and global security. Israel will also ensure there is a war and probably start it.

The next war is right around the corner. The diplomacy option with Iran is a bunch of bs that hasn't worked. At some point, diplomacy will be off the table. We all know that is where we are headed so no sense in pretending it will just work itself out in the name of peace and security.

 

It may have been worth it if it teaches a new generation of war mongers that war is hell (or is it war is profitable?)

 

All under the watchful eye of the US - and 40+ billion in support (third largest recipient, at one point). That is, until Kuwait - which threatened to destabilize a ton of carefully developed diplomatic/resource spiderwebs...

 

Except that Bush 41 didn't go to Baghdad when he had the chance and by all reports Colin Powell within the BUsh 43 Admin. didn't support the invasion of Iraq.

We will never know for sure how much things could've turned out differently if Saddam's army and police had been used by the occupation instead of being dismantled but I think things still would've been bad. Saddam kept order over a divided sectarian society through violence so if the US had kept Saddam's army and police in place while we may not have had so much chaos there still probably would've been a lot of problems regarding how brutal the army police were acting to maintain order during the occupation. Democracy still probably would've been difficult to achieve.

Everyone accepts that Saddam was a very bad man the problem then though was it worth it to take him out the way we did? Consider that his regime was crippled and bottled up due to sanctions and no-fly zone. Kurdistan was operating practically as an independent territory. Saddam wasn't a threat externally and as the invasion showed pretty much toothless. Granted he probably could've hung on for years but given the Arab Spring he might've fallen anyway without the US invading.

Invading Iraq though wasn't just a question about what was going on in Iraq but also about where the US was. We were still embroiled in conflict in Afghanistan dealing with enemies that actually did attack us. There was practically unanimous domestic and foreign support for us. Invading Iraq though squandered much of that support while diverting needed resources from Afghanistan / Pakistan to Iraq. It was tangential at best in regard to 9/11 that ended up dominating out politics, military and global alliances.

It wasn't worth it then and it still isn't. While I hope the best for the Iraqi people for us this invasion was a terrible mistake.

 

Enemy of my enemy. Iran took American diplomats hostage. That pisses the State Department off.

You can't change the past and you can't judge the present until you know how it turns out in the future but I don't think anybody has a problem saying the way Iraq went down was a f**kup; a blind stumbling in the fog of war.

But the best hope for justification for Iraq is to see a tie to the Arab Spring; finally cracking the intractability of autocracies. There really wasn't much movement in political freedom since the fall of the Soviet states, and there wasn't going to be until something really radical happened. Things are moving now, rapidly. Dictators are falling like dominoes. You can say they are not tied as events, it's debatable, but they did happen, in sequence. I see it.

Give it ten years and come back to this thread.

 

Further evidence that this was not "democracy-driven".

 

gotta break some eggs to make a cake.