I’m actually happy that our effort to train Iraqi police officers is a total failure and is being largely abandoned. It’s not that I don’t want the Iraqis to have effective and well-equipped police. And it’s not because I like that our government wastes billions of dollars on things it doesn’t know how to do. I’m happy because the Iraqis are basically telling us to take our tens of billions of dollars and get the hell out of their country. That will not only save us tens of billions of dollars, but it prevents us from reaping any kind of reward for invading and destroying their country in the first place. I’ve always been ambivalent about what some might call ‘success’ in Iraq. On the one hand, I didn’t want more people to die, whether those people were American or coalition soldiers or they were Iraqis caught up in the civil war. So, I wanted our forces to be able to reestablish some semblance of order. On the other hand, I didn’t want us coming out of this fiasco with the idea that it worked in some way. I didn’t want us feeling like it was something we’d ever want to repeat.
Therefore, I sought a kind of middle ground. I didn’t want our forces harmed or our national interests severely undermined. I didn’t want chaos or more influence for Iran. I didn’t want Iraq to continue in a state of ruinous violence. But I also didn’t want America to come out the other end of this with big benefits that might cause some to rationalize what we’ve done. It’s a tension between wanting to mitigate a disaster and still make sure everyone is clear that it was a disaster. A tension between wanting to avoid the full potential consequences of the calamity and wanting us to take our well-deserved beating.
In the end, that all translates out to hoping that we patch things up as best we can, apologize, and get the hell out. And, maybe, if we act like a decent ally for a while, we can have good relations with Iraq in the future. For Iraq to survive and prosper, they probably will need our help and support. But not if we haven’t learned anything.
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Little to show for after 8 years of anguish and sorrow in Iraq. Christians are living as refugees in Syria and Jordan. Maliki and his Shia led administration are in Iran’s sphere of influence, VP Hashimi, a Sunni, is on the run and listed by Interpol for arrest. However, PM Erdogan of Turkey refuses to do so. The Iragi’s of the Sunni triangle, Fallujah and Anbar province are delivering explosives and suicide bombers into Syria. See my comment in diary – Al-Nusra Front Claims Syrian Suicide Attacks. The Kurds will push for their sovereignty and revenues from the rich oil fields of Kirkuk. Iran protests the presence of Mossad intelligence and special ops crossing border to launch terror actions in Teheran.
All what has gone wrong in Iraq is mirrored in Afghanistan, best is to pull out at our convenience. The ‘spoils of war’ will be divided between the same parties after the Soviets were defeated. Afghanistan will remain under influence of all border states and powerful clans: Northern Alliance, Soviet satellite states, Iran, Pakistan and India. The medieval society will return to Taliban Sharia rule, perhaps they will once again banish poppy culture and crack down on heroin trade. The Western powers failed in ‘nation building’, governance and wasteful corruption. Obama could not impress on Pakistan leadership the same urgency to fight the many terror groups as Bush was able to do after the 9/11 attacks.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."There would be little chance of any Neo-Taliban government killing the poppy trade. They would need the support of the warlords and those guys like their poppys, thank you very much. That’s the same reason the western powers never did it either which at least would be some positive benefit out of the whole mess.
The Taliban only started burning the poppy fields a few months before the western invasion, and then only half heartedly. For the rest of the time they were lining their own pockets with it.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Thanks, Oui. I thought S’s claim sounded wrong, but I wasn’t sure.
Thanks for the link. But it is also true that the Taliban did nothing about heroin production till 2001, and they had been in power for 10 years or so.
How is my ass covering? Call 1800-..
The medieval society will return to Taliban Sharia rule
Hold on there. The Taliban were only able to come to power in the first place when they had a powerful neighbor backing them (the Pakistanis and the Saudis), and nobody backing their opponents. Even then, they were never able to put down the “Northern Alliance.”
The situation post-withdrawal is going to be exactly the opposite. The Taliban will have little-to-no foreign backing, while the Kabul government will have the backing of the US.
Sometimes, people make the mistake of assuming that whichever people in an society are the most violent and anti-American are, by definition, the most genuine and legitimate expression of that society’s values and ambitions. If this was the case, then why wasn’t Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban or its equivalent in the 50s, 60s, or 70s?
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Yes, the Taliban commits acts of terrorism, a practice frequently described as “the tactic of the weak.”
They also have a power base, as your third link says, only in those areas that have long been outside the write of the Kabul government.
But we knew all of that. The question was about their capacity to take over the country, not skulk in shadows and slaughter some “soft targets.”
How did those peoples in present day Iraq and Afghanistan ever manage to survive for thousands of years without US forces containing violence.
Never should have invaded either country and been mature and gracious enough to accept defeat years ago.
W didn’t want to admit anything.
A nation behaving like Mitt Romney. He really is the embodiment of everything wrong with this country.
Historically there have only been a few periods of violent Sunni-Shi`a conflict in Iraq, and each one has been associated with a foreign invasion and occupation. In each case (except, of course, the current one) the conflict has died down after the foreign occupation ended, and relations have gone back to normal.
Unfortunately, this time it may have gone too far. Through its ignorance (not its intent, by my analysis, though others disagree), the United States succeeded in empowering the most extreme elements, and now the entire fabric of Iraq’s society has been ripped to shreds. Ancient peoples who have been there in some cases literally for thousands of years have been or are being driven out. The wonderful diversity of Iraq’s population is gone or going. I just don’t know whether Iraq can recover this time.
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I suspect a good percentage of the country will learn nothing from the Iraq disaster. Maybe that percentage will be slightly less than the ones who learned nothing from the Vietnam disaster. The US is a violent, militaristic country and I don’t see any major trends on the horizon to change that.
I get it, but the waste and the meddling in Iraqwill go on- we built the largest U.S. embassy in the world in Baghdad during the occupation. There’s a “small” U.S. military force attached to protect the embassy, plus all of the employees.
So- given the crappy condition of OUR economy/nation, this sort of expenditure in Iraq is absurd and a disaster.
The “democrats” in congress say nothing about this; it’s one more example of how certain U.S. policies never change, regardless of which political party controls congress or the white house.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/16/us-embassy-iraq-state-department-plan_n_965945.html
There were 160,000 American soldiers occupying the entirety of Iraq, and waging a counterinsurgency war there, three years ago.
Now, you’re complaining because the embassy staff is too large.
But policies never change, Mr. Broder, and both sides are exactly the same.
The very fact that you can use the terms embassy and embassy staff in this context shows how out of touch you are with reality.
I’ve been in embassies, and I have had embassy staff and their families as neighbors. That is no embassy, and those people are no embassy staff.
OK, I’ll bite- if our gigantic, expensive “embassy” is not an embassy- then what is it??
Being told I’m “out of touch with reality” with someone who doesn’t think there is a difference between a war and an EMBASSY STAFF doesn’t hurt as much as you probably hoped.
Thought experiment: if Obama announced tomorrow that he was going to bump troop levels back up to 160,000 in Iraq, and restart the counterinsurgency campaign, and reoccupy the “permanent” bases in order to allow us to “project power throughout the region,” does Hurria and the rest of the dead-enders say “oh, there’s no real difference?”
Again, I’m not a Kool-Aid drinker; if you don’t like it, too bad.
I’m simply providing some reality balance to the notion we’re “saving money” in Iraq. Since it’s my tax dollars being spent, it’s my right to do so.
You mention the troop pullout, but I wonder if you questioned why were there in the first place?
That’s not an answer. We heard you the first time, and as I pointed out, you were wrong on the facts.
You can’t even try to argue the facts, so you do your little tapdance about ideological conformity.
Well, I was opposed to the Iraq War in the summer of 2002, and it didn’t even begin until March of 2003 – not that that has anything to do with the claim that there is no difference between the Bush and Obama policies there. That, you see, is not a question whose answer is “I’m the better leftist!”
Again, I’m not a Kool-Aid drinker
You are the biggest Kool-Aid drinker on these threads. The amount of effort it takes, in 2012, to believe that there has been no change in our Iraq policy since George Bush demonstrates that you are one devout mofo.
BooMan, I agree with your main point, and understand your ambivalence. I have never been ambivalent in my belief that failure of the U.S. venture in Iraq is to be devoutly desired, the more abject the failure, the better. My reasoning is the same as yours – the United States should reap no benefit from a crime, not to mention a piece of stupidity, of this magnitude.
One way we differ is that I don’t believe the Iraqis need the United States’ “help and support” any more than a rape victim needs the “help and support” of her rapist in order to recover. Iraqis will work things out. Just leave them alone for once.
I am sure you recognize that what threw Iraq into this “state of ruinous violence” is the United States’ actions. This kind of situation is not something inherent in Iraqi society – not by a long shot. If it were Iraqis would all have killed each other millenia ago instead of living together for thousands of years in relative peace and harmony.
I don’t really want any more American soldiers harmed because in spite of making the poor choices of joining the military and agreeing to go to Iraq in the first place, they are human beings. As for U.S. national interests, the U.S. should reap what they sow. Unfortunately, it is the Iraqis who have to deal with that particular crop of crap. I don’t want anymore Iraqis harmed by the United States, directly or indirectly, and the only way that is going to happen is if the United States keeps its nose out of Iraq and Iraqi business.
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“This kind of situation is not something inherent in Iraqi society – not by a long shot.”
Vehemently disagree, etnic strife and religion have been the main causes for destroying fellow human beings for a number of centuries since the Middle-Ages, rather during the last millennium. Think of the conquests of Jerusalem and the Crusades, the spread of Islamism till it’s progress was stopped at Poitiers, France. The christians under leadership of the Church of Rome, Inquisition and all later wars in Europe between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th century conquest of nations and earth’s resources, the European Union was formed as a Coal and Steel Community.
You must be aware of Maliki’s power with Iran’s backing and VP Hashemi on the run from an arrest warrent from Interpol. See my comment about Afghanistan and the persecution of the Hazara Shias. Similar killings in the region between Sunni and Shia: Bahrein, Pakistan and de facto in Lebanon and Syria. It’s clear the deadly suicide car bombs in Syria are of Sunni origin.
Dictators with the Stalin doctrine kept the factions from slaughter: Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Assad’s in Syria and in Europe as example Marshall Tito in Yugoslavia.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Oui, I don’t see how what you said is a response to what I said. I said that the kind of situation we have seen since the Americans invaded and occupied Iraq is not something inherent in Iraqi society, and historically that is true. What you are talking about is global geopolitical events, and internal politics, and that is not what I have been talking about.
I guess I feel a bit more qualified than most here to comment on Iraqi (and Syrian) society, having lived inside of it as a member of it. Iraq’s (and Syria’s) society has historically been extremely diverse, and the various parts of it have lived together and contributed to the society, the economy, and the culture literally for milennia. If the kind of strife we have seen since 2003 were inherent in Iraqi society it would not require such a combination of externally-induced catastrophic events and outside manipulation to bring about the kinds of things we have seen as a result of the American invasion and occupation.
Also, you really cannot compare Bashshar Al Asad to Saddam Hussein in any kind of realistic way.
the more abject the failure, the better
As we learned in 2006, the more abject the failure of Bush’s Iraq project, the more Iraqis died. Are you disappointed that Iraq has not collapsed back into insurgency and civil war upon our exit? Another six-digit body count on the heels of a collapse of the Malaki government would have really shown the whole thing to be a failure.