Again, the West has given the middle east SOOO many reasons to distrust them, it's going to take more than a couple of years doing the right thing. Also, when you are talking about the gulf states "prospering" you are talking solely about rentier states that make almost all of their money on natural resources. You run into all kinds of problems when a state's economy is entirely or almost entirely based on the rents of mineral resources, most notably from a government standpoint. Rentierism and Democracy are incompatible because if a state essentially doesn't need their people to fund the government, why pay attention to their voice? Countries like Saudi are always going to be like that, but Iraq doesn't have to be. They could be rebuilt with a legitimate economic infrastructure which IMO is what we need to do. It would take years, probably decades, and it would be expensive, but it's the right thing to do. Writing off the people of the region as mindless Islamists who can't be helped is BS. Give them a reason to trust the West, which again will take more than a couple of years, and they would eventually. The West screwed the region up to begin with, they ought to help fix it.
Again though, how much are we, as a country willing to commit to a foreign country? Afghanistan and Iraq are both the longest wars in American history, and both the American public and the people actually living those countries are wary of us being there (in sharp contrast to Germany and Japan). Especially when there's no definite track of how long we'd be there or even if an Iraqi democracy is in our favour (one need only to look at how elections in Lebanon, Gaza, and Egypt went). I'm not anti-democratic- but it's stupid to have a foreign policy that does not promote your own interests. Iraq even has a democracy, right now. The reason ISIS has so much support is because the Arabs in the country make up too small of a population to have any say in the government, which is corrupt, pro-Iranian and heavily biased towards the Shias. You seem to be operating on the premise that Iraq acts as one country. It's not one country, it's three countries under one flag. Something like 60% of all the Shias in Iraq are of Iranian/Persian descent. The Kurds have long been on their own and hated by both the Persians and the Arabs. It's not a matter of Iraqis trusting Iran and Saudi Arabia more than us, it's a set of arbitrary borders between two groups of people with nothing but animosity. The Arabs in Iraq will naturally be pro-Saudi, just as the Shi'as in Iraq will naturally be pro-Iranian, because they neither of them see themselves as Iraqi. Just Arab or Persian.
First off not all of the Gulf States economies are dependent on natural resources, Dubai has very little natural resources, and even then several of them have been moving to diversify their economies to become major banking, trade and tourism centers. Further an economy heavily dependent on natural resources isn't inherently incompatible with democracy as Norway shows. That said even if we accept your contention that natural resources based economy is incompatible with democracy then that makes things even more difficult in Iraq as the only path to wealth is natural resources since any manufacturing or services base has been decimated by sanctions and war. Your problem is even greater then because how would you build up alegitimate economic infrastructure without relying natural resources? This is again where the comparisons to Germany and Japan fail is that those countries in the leadup to WWII were two of the major industrial powers at the time and two of the most technologically and economically advanced countries. So even while much of their infrastructure was destroyed they still had a lot of the human capital and expertise to rebuild. Iraq has never been in that position. So to turn Iraq into what you are proposing isn't about rebuilding but about creating something that had never been. You seem to buy into this concept that the US can actually do something like this without grasping what it would take in terms of treasure and blood to do so. I haven't written off the people as mindless Islamist and you are raising yet another straw man. You have to consider though that for the most part the US has preferred to deal with Arab Monarchies and secular strongmen neither of which has an interest in democracy. The truth is democracy cannot be imposed at the point of a gun but has to develop organically. Further you seem to believe that somehow if the US through military force can make things better in Iraq that that means people in the region will suddenly love the US. Consider that even in Japan, Germany and especially in South Korea there some strong anti-American feelings over the continued US presence. This is what I find so problematic about your view. It seems much more like wishful thinking based on a very naive view of the costs.
IRAQI OFFICIALS SAY MILITANTS SEIZE CITY OF TIKRIT http://bigstory.ap.org/article/governor-says-iraq-determined-retake-mosul This is getting really bad. If Samarra or Balad go then Baghdad is next. Remind me again why we're worried about Afghanistan since A) we know we are going to lose there and B) ISIS/ISIL/AQI are in the process of carving out a new caliphate in the heard of the Arab world? This is going to get very, very ugly.
Not sure how many people are aware of this, but the Iraqi people are VERY wary of US occupation in the region. Let me cite one example of such seemingly illogical animosity towards "democracy bringing Americans" When the US first invaded Afghanistan, we used new scale weapons called DU (Depleted Uranium) munitions that were especially effective at armor piercing. These weapons have left behind radioactive decay in the form of scrap metals, left over weapons & ammo, and general traces in infrastructure. Looking back since 2003, there has been a 600% increase in child birth deformities including congenital heart disease, ADS, PDS, and other neurological defects. When they sampled the blood of these infants and sent them to Germany for centrifuge analysis, they found significant traces of mercury, bismuth, and uranium... The very isotopes found in these UD weapons and similiar anti-armor munitions. When Vice asked the US State Department of Defense about the issue.. NO COMMENT. So lets ask ourselves, who are we really helping with the US invasion of Iraq? Did we uncover weapons of mass destruction, did we bring long lasting democracy to a region that we could invest in for a long run with respect to our own current economic state, what is the purpose of this "war"? Please don't say it was to stop the murderous Sadam Hussein, there are far worse than him out there; you don't need to look further than Syria or Africa for that. Besides, we fought alongside Joseph Stalin in World War II, perhaps the most monstrous man in world history who committed genocide on a far grander scale than our enemy, Adolf Hitler, he just did it to his own people.
U.S. Embassy Prepares for Possible Evacuation as Militants Take Control in Iraq The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is preparing contingency plans to evacuate its employees if necessary now that one of the deadliest Islamic militant groups in the region has taken control of large swaths of Iraq, a U.S. official told TheBlaze. The State Department also warned U.S. citizens against traveling to Iraq, following several days of bloody clashes between insurgents with the Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Iraqi military forces. ISIL has taken control of Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah and aims to create an Islamic state across the Iraq-Syria border. Full Story: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/11/u-s-embassy-prepares-for-possible-evacuation-as-militants-take-control-in-iraq/
We can't afford it. Taxing the rich wouldn't help much in the grand scheme for sustaining a trillion dollar/year industrial complex that would've kept growing and growing while our volunteer force on the ground became more and more brittle. The bill for caring for returning vets is snowballing even while VA flushes their claims down the toilet... **** Blackwater. On one hand, you're continuing the NeoCon facade of their Domino Theory, which sounded great if it had worked. On the other, the same strategy is exactly what AQ wanted, endless quagmire through an unwinnable asymmetric war. Absolutely paranoid ramblings. The Israelis and Saudis would react as much as you think the Iranians would. We have a role, but their influence and stakes are much higher than our global war on terrorism. It's their backyard. We just don't want them to go to town yet. It'd be extremely nasty for everyone. Interesting posts and contributions. Repped. Turkey is in no mood of entertaining thoughts of a Kurdish state, and there's no way around them. The endless legacy of French and English occupation has been continuously rearing its nasty head, and I highly doubt there'd be a resolution while these resource rich states have the Dutch Curse. They're deliberately weak for multinational contractors to pick clean. I guess there's some models of multiple ethnicities coexisting with the Latin American republics, but I think their current rise came from not being at the world's eye. My cynical theory....
Other than verified Pyle, and probably President McCain of Meet the pressistan - is there anybody in the country, from libtard to teabagger- who wants to engage in more military adventures in Iraq?
They were too small to matter. I think the issue is that a lot of the old well-trained Iraq army under Hussein is now part of this ISIS group.
I wonder what happened to you as a child that has made you the way you are. You must have been tormented by bullies for years. I don't know whether you have some physical handicap, were unattractive in your youth, maybe you are a little person, but I'm sorry you were picked on. I think you should seek counseling to let go of your past. It would be healthy for you and would make you much more pleasant. The internet has given you a safe place to lash out and show people the kind of treatment you received. You'll never be able to get past this without help Sam.
I agree this might be a factor. The de-Baathication process the US undertook after Saddam fell stripped the Iraqi military and government of many of their most capable people. That said the US has spent tons of money arming and training the Iraqi military and from most reports it sounds like they aren't willing to fight and are just abandoning their posts. If the Iraqis aren't willing to fight for their own country I don't understand why people expect us to fight for it for them.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Boehner: for last 5-6 mos, terrorists have been "taking control of western Iraq, ...what's the President doing? Taking a nap."</p>— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper/statuses/477123386318286848">June 12, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Exactly, the tail is already tucked and we are already in the process of abandoning the Iraqis.....just like they always knew we would. If there is anything you can count on it's that America will flake out if anything gets too difficult or takes too much time.
Shortly after Mosul, Iraq, fell to al Qaeda militants earlier this week, the White House repeated some familiar talking points claiming the decimation of “core al Qaeda” and the end the Iraq war as the president’s top foreign policy accomplishments. Here’s what incoming White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on Tuesday when asked to name the top accomplishments of Hillary Clinton’s term as President Obama’s secretary of state: “In terms of important foreign policy accomplishments for which Secretary Clinton can rightly claim her share of the credit, I would put ending the war in Iraq, responsibly winding down the war in Afghanistan, and decimating and destroying core al Qaeda – that those are a handful of accomplishments that certainly this president and this commander-in-chief are proud of. But it’s one that – those are the kinds of accomplishments that Secretary Clinton can justifiably be proud of, as well.” American troops are out if Iraq, of course, but with the flag of al Qaeda flying over major Iraqi cities, it may be time to adjust talking points suggesting the war in Iraq is over and that al Qaeda – core or otherwise – has been decimated. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politic...te-house-talking-points-on-iraq-and-al-qaeda/
