I’m not going to praise the fascist Ba’ath Party, either in its Syrian or Iraqi manifestations. But, prior to the invasion of Iraq, those two societies were the most ecumenical, tolerant places in the Arabian peninsula. People intermarried freely and Christians enjoyed a fairly decent life, with some even being given positions of immense responsibility. When you compared Iraq and Syria to Saudi Arabia, the differences were striking. And this was in spite of the fact that both Syria and Iraq were upside down countries where the majority sect (Sunnis in Syria, Shiites in Iraq) was not in control of the levers of government.
The war destroyed both societies along with all that religious tolerance and caused a region-wide sectarian conflict. It empowered two groups: the Iranians and their Shi’a proxies, and the radicalized and intolerant Sunni Arabs of the Saudi-type.
Most of this was predicted in broad details if not fine detail. It was predicted not only in academic circles, but also in congressional testimony. It was completely foreseeable.
So, now that we have a problem with radicalized Sunni Arabs, we know exactly who caused this. First and foremost, this is the Saudis’ fault for incubating this form of Islam. Then it is American policy-makers’ fault for encouraging the Saudis in this over the last thirty-five years. But the main driver was the invasion of Iraq, and the people responsible for that decision are all over my television complaining that the president doesn’t have an adequate plan to address the problem that they created.
They don’t know what they are talking about and they never have known what they are talking about. The only important thing is that they stay on television and out of policy-making positions.
Meanwhile, the slowing of the ISIS/ISIL/Daesh advance out of Sunni territory and the consequences of its snuff films have reduced the availability of additional people to kidnap for ransom or steal from. Terror states thankfully tend to be short-lived or have to deliver real government services in order to continue to exist. The longer the President resists the Republican calls to escalation anywhere, the more likely the current hot spots can be stabilized.
The Republicans in inviting Netanyahu show that they don’t care about American interests. It is increasingly likely that their foreign policy advice is trolling the President to create a foreign policy failure that they can then stick to the Democrats for a generation. That seemed to work with Truman, Johnson, Carter, and even Clinton. Korea/China, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq. To the point that President Obama has been reluctant to put Democrats in national security positions unless they are flaming neoconservatives.
so what else is new?
Sorry, but with Xtian terrorists in power in this country (at local levels and 2/3 of the national level) I just can’t get too excited about what the crybabies are crying about.
apologies. I was not clear in the above statement.
The crybabies are the ones who pushed the invasion in the first place.
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
Plus, it’s a hobby that can make them lots of money. They’re like people who burn down building for the insurance money, only better-dressed and with their own media agents.
Sioux Falls is a small town, with limited restaurant options. We do have Sanaa’s. Sanaa is a Syrian woman who cooks Syrian/Middleeatern food. She is married to James Abourzak, who was a 1-term D Senator from SD (he is one of only 2 Arab American US Senators; the other, James Abnor, wass also a SD senator on the R side).
Sanaa is a Christian. She is an unapologetic backer of Al-Assad. She has stated that any replacement for Al-Assad will put women back 100 years. I’m sure that this is true. Al-Assad, Khaddafi, all those dictators are terrible people, but women did much better under the dictators than under the clerics. Look at Iran. It used to have women who looked like they were in Paris. Not today. Terrible place to be a woman. Islam is not a religion which does well by women.
Molly Ivins said once that there were three cultures in Texas: shitkicker, Tejano, and Anglo. All three were hell on horses, kids and women.
It’s awful, because Assad is a truly evil person and his henchmen are worse, but it’s true. Not only on gender lines but also ethnicity and religion, he is the protector of whoever doesn’t fit in a Da’esh model.
That line of thinking leads back to admitting that even the Shah was better for Iran than what came after, though the blunders began when Eisenhower took out Mossadegh.
Eisenhower was applying the same mindless containment theory that had already led to an unnecessary and foolish war in Korea and would later lead to an unnecessary and foolish war in Vietnam.
In Turkey, it was the army’s job to enforce a secularist constitution and prevent democracy establishing Islamism.
The democratic Islamists have neutered the army, there.
In Algeria in the early 1990’s a secular regime was pressured into moves toward democracy that precipitated a crisis and a civil war with Islamists.
You know what just happened in Egypt.
In America, friendly judges prevent democracy from leading to clerical domination by reliance on a relatively strong, secularist reading of the First Amendment.
In the Muslim world it has proved more difficult.
It doesn’t help that the idea has been prevalent in America since the fall of the Shah that democracy is better than dictatorship even when it obviously isn’t.
The rule of the clerics in Iran has been a total disaster with no redeeming value. The Shah was certainly better, and I think a lot of Iranians would happily go back to the Shah immediately. The clerics declared war on Iraq, which cost millions of lives in mass attacks like in WWI. The country is in terrible shape. It is an international pariah.
I would only wish to add that Afghanistan, where the Saudi-US project began as an effort to stop the USSR, also had a liberal, woman-friendly and ethnically-religiously relaxed atmosphere under Communist rule that is now more or less totally destroyed.
Actually, I thought at the time the Reaganuts were playing with matches in shed full of dynamite.
Better for Afghanistan and better for everyone to let the Russians quietly dominate, there.
Wow.
I agree with you absolutely on every single sentence.
But I would go further.
Bush should have settled for punitive strikes in Afghanistan and should not have gone for regime change there, either.
But there is still time.
US out of there.
Given our record, we should just stop interfering.