The Ottoman Empire, like the Roman Empire before it, never tried to impose a common cultural or religious identity, and in fact most of its subjects were never in any way participatory citizens with any kind of equivalent or egalitarian representation. No one in Iraq thinks of themselves as being part of the “Ottoman” cultural group or any other common cultural identity. Lumping “Muslims” as if that gives them a shared cultural identity is the blithe ignorance regarding ethnic discord in the region; both the group that maintains primary control over Iraq, and the groups that seek overthrow of that regime identify as being Muslim of some bent, as do the regimes of Iran and Syria which are providing support to insurgents. This is akin to arguing that all Christian denominations, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican are all in common agreement, and therefore the Thirty Year’s War and other disagreements never happened.
Oil. Oil. Oil. Oil. Oil. Oil. Oil. Et cetera, ad nauseum.
Yes, we could ignore this entire region from a national security perspective if we were not tied to their petroleum reserves. But then that would put the control of energy for transportation use into anyone’s hands.
I’ve been resisting the observation. But since you kicked it off, “Do you want ants? Because this is how you get ants!”
To nitpick here, King Faisal wasn’t Syrian born. He was born in Mecca, the third son of Sharif Hussein, and he was the one who, with the help of T.E. Lawrence, led the Arab Revolt. He’s the one played by Alec Guinness in the movie.
How can this be happening? They’ve literally taken over a quarter of the country, this seems to be one of the worst US and UK foreign policy disasters in a generation.
The point I was making is that the Vietcong were a terrorist organisation in direct opposition to the Diem government, they showed in that battle that they had more will and conviction to fight the war than the American backed ARVN, the fact they fought a fixed battle is a moot point, they mostly fought irregular combat.
Let’s just say before 2003, Iraq had been capable somewhat of maintaining its borders and internal security than now, it’s not an excuse when I say Bremer in 2003 disbanded an entire institution, and expected that there wouldn’t be problems further down the road in result of doing that ridiculous decision, so in part, we’re witnessing the result of that policy.
But I have more in common with Europeans and Americans than Middle Easterners if I generalise, I expect the same can be said of Turks and Arabs in relation to us.
However, that’s a wide assumption of what I was stating, like it or not, the Turkish empire did have a huge cultural legacy throughout the Middle East. I’m not merely lumping all Muslims into one pot and I’m aware of the ethnic discord, but that doesn’t discount the fact there is a shared identity between people within the Middle East, and I’ve never said they were part of an ‘Ottoman’ cultural group.
I came here to start a thread lamenting the idiocy of the 2003 invasion, along with a little “told you so” from someone who was oppossed in the first place. Seeing this thread, my intended action seems a little superfluous.
Is there a reasonable consensus to the question of how much threat ISIS poses outside the immediate area? Are they just looking to impose their rule in the region, or do they have axes to grind, in the manner of supporting terrorism or destabilizing the region?
To me, while I agree we have a responsibility due to our culpability, if this doesn’t represent a real threat to us or our allies, we need to stay away. Our track record is not good.
My prediction: Syria revisited. Things fall apart, humanitarian crisis, our options are reduced to looking callous while people suffer, or picking winners from a list of groups we’d really rather not help.
(Bolding mine)
Wait, what? This is a Sunni insurgency made up of the same group that the Syrian regime is fighting against with the help of the Iranian regime, which is Shiite and doesn’t have much cause to oppose the current Iraqi government, which is also majority Shiite.
I don’t claim to be any expert, but either I’m really confused about something, or you are.
I don’t think it’s so much the worry about it getting pumped and sold as it is the worry about who gets the proceeds and what they use that to finance.
Air power is a force multiplier - a very effective force multiplier, but a force multiplier nonetheless. You can’t win a war unless you have a force on the ground that’s willing to fight.
I am not talking about just bombings. Air assets can include things like helicopter for air assault and drones and survilliance craft.
Fact of the matter is that Iraqs history for thousands of years shows that the size of armies is not relevant for the region, you need force multipliers, be they chariots, cavalry, cannon or aircraft.
The US deliberately ensured the NIA was not equipped for this mission.
And who’s going to ride in those helicopters? Who’s going to use the intelligence provide by those drones? Face it - the Iraqi army doesn’t want to fight. Any number multiplied by zero is still zero.
And yeah, the Americans fucked up. They may have given the NIA weapons and taught them to fight, but they didn’t bother to make sure they had anything to fight for.
This made-up country cannot even form a government let alone get a quorate Parliament to issue a state of emergency.
Seeing what has happened in Libya, an intervention I foolishly supported, I now realise there’s absolutely nothing the West can do in that part of the world but let them have at each other.
IMO the fundamental flaw in the entire neocon nation-building concept has been a modernist, Western idea that simply creating borders and naming a place creates a national identity that somehow, magically, people would want to fight for.
