# The terrorist haven of Iraq: A self-fulfilling prophecy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 13, 2014, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677 "2014-06-13T02:56:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![iLemming](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90db22/32.png) [@iLemming](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iLemming)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/1 "2014-06-13T02:56:13Z")
Now that the latest Islamic bogey men are running Blitzkrieg across Iraq, resulting in the almost certain re-involvement of the West in this region after its fruitless, protracted search for the infamous, O.J.'s “killers” -like “WMD’s”, isn’t it high time we re-assess the U.S. and co.'s hegemonic modus operandi and why it always seems to take such an ad hoc shape, seemingly lacking any foresight or planning? It’s an accepted fact that powerful nations, cultures and conglomerates thereof will disseminate their particular ideologies and wares throughout the planet – the Romans did it, the Ottamans, British, U.S. …even China are making similar overtures now, both aggressively and through ‘softer’, economic means. It’s human nature. However, it’s one thing to spread ‘the good word’, but something else entirely to enter these places without any discernible flowchart as to _how_ these regions will be ‘converted’ and left in a stable, changed state once the troops have returned home. How much longer can ‘we’ continue to, what oftentimes essentially constitutes, **invading** these nations and doing so without following through and re-establishing and stabilising their societies to more reflect our own? Iraq specifically: What kind of “training” did the ‘democracy brothers’ give these guys – a three-day short course?! Their armies are literally running away and the country is being left to ultra extremists. The very premise his heehaw eminence, George W., invaded the place on in the first place! Is this… irony? :dubious: Either we do this democratic dissemination thing right or we do not do it all. Either we expunge all resistance to the notions we’re imposing upon a given nation - if this means prime-time-unfriendly carpet bombing of mountain ranges, so be it - or we let them wallow in their god-worship, autocracy or whatever yoke of oppression they might be lathering under. Surely this half-assed, cobbled together approach to playing ‘world police’ has to end if we’re ever to make any actual, _forward_ progress and gain respect as First World nations that use their relative ascension to accomplish good. As distinct from just running amok like bulls in a china shop – a reputation which we’ve all but been branded with now. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/2 "2014-06-13T04:51:38Z")
I seriously doubt the US is up for more adventurism in the Middle East. The military industrial complex may be keen to go back but no one else is and I cannot see how they make the case this time around. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/3 "2014-06-13T06:06:53Z")
> [@iLemming](#): > > Either we do this democratic dissemination thing right or we do not do it all. Either we expunge all resistance to the notions we’re imposing upon a given nation - if this means prime-time-unfriendly carpet bombing of mountain ranges, so be it - or we let them wallow in their god-worship, autocracy or whatever yoke of oppression they might be lathering under. What you are calling for would require the near-total genocide or expulsion of the local population, and replacing them with Americans. “Prime-time-unfriendly” is a massive understatement. And us going there and trying to massacre them into agreeing with us is more oppressive than anything they do to themselves not less. > [@iLemming](#): > > Surely this half-assed, cobbled together approach to playing ‘world police’ has to end if we’re ever to make any actual, _forward_ progress and gain respect as First World nations that use their relative ascension to accomplish good. We aren’t interested in doing good; we’ve never been interested in doing good. We’re just interested in spouting noble sounding rhetoric while we stomp all over people weaker than ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/4 "2014-06-13T09:23:35Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > We aren’t interested in doing good; we’ve never been interested in doing good. We’re just interested in spouting noble sounding rhetoric while we stomp all over people weaker than ourselves. Overly broad brush strokes. I am _not_ a strong supporter of U.S. imperialism, but much of it has done more good than harm. South Korea is obviously a huge success story. The U.S. has defended several other countries from hostile takeover, e.g. Bosnia. Even the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup d’état in Iran led to a period of prosperity, not equaled after their 1979 revolution until recently. One needn’t agree with self-interested U.S. interventions to acknowledge that, in many cases, they provided stability and enhanced global security. The 2003 Invasion of Iraq was an aberration, a warning of what can happen when the U.S. government is run by naive ideologues without adult supervision. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/5 "2014-06-13T10:22:07Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Overly broad brush strokes. I am _not_ a strong supporter of U.S. imperialism, but much of it has done more good than harm. South Korea is obviously a huge success story. The U.S. has defended several other countries from hostile takeover, e.g. Bosnia. Even the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup d’état in Iran led to a period of prosperity, not equaled after their 1979 revolution until recently. > > One needn’t agree with self-interested U.S. interventions to acknowledge that, in many cases, they provided stability and enhanced global security. > > The 2003 Invasion of Iraq was an aberration, a warning of what can happen when the U.S. government is run by naive ideologues without adult supervision. Overthrowing democratic governments like in Iran is never a good thing for anyone. And look how badly it all worked out in the end. The 2003 invasion was not an aberration. It was in terms of immoral, unwise, incompetent and downright self-defeating interventions of various stripes pretty much par for the course. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/6 "2014-06-13T15:12:51Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Overthrowing democratic governments like in Iran is never a good thing for anyone. > > And look how badly it all worked out in the end. The 2003 invasion was not an aberration. It was in terms of immoral, unwise, incompetent and downright self-defeating interventions of various stripes pretty much par for the course. Read what I wrote, not what you wish a strawman wrote so that you can argue against it. Many many Iraqis, both Shi’ite and Sunni, enjoyed life much more under Saddam than they do now. Similarly the 1953 coup brought 25 years of stability and prosperity to Iran. Strongmen are … strong. (And I don’t need to be reminded of how heinous Saddam was. That was well known to those of us on the rational side of the aisle way back when Cheney and Rumsfeld were supplying arms to Saddam.) For your comparison of Iraq and Iran (“interventions … pretty much par for the course”) to be sensical you must think the 2003 invasion of Iraq ushered in 25 years of prosperity and stability like the 1953 coup did for Iran. Did it? ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/7 "2014-06-13T16:23:52Z")
Americans fought in Iraq for nine years after the invasion. That is not a three day course in democracy. It is hard to create a democracy in a nation without a democratic tradition and it is doubly hard in Iraq where Sunni, Shiite, and Kurds are all shoehorned together in one place. There is no blueprint or obvious plan. Plus the enemy always gets a vote in every war plan. There are thousands of terrorist fighters in Iraq, they either need to be co-opted or defeated. It is not all up to Americans, the locals have agency. America could have done everything right and it would still be possible for Iraqis to squander it or we could have done everything wrong and they could have made it work anyway. They are trying to build democratic institutions in a country that was a brutal dictatorship for years, over a population riven with deep ethnic and religous divisions. As has been pointed out Iran had a good twenty five year run under the Shah and then collapsed into theocracy. There is no way to know if this is the start of a Syrian style civil war or the growing pains of a new nation. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/8 "2014-06-13T17:52:16Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > . . . Iran had a good twenty five year run under the Shah . . . Absolutely. [SAVAK](http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/iran/savak.htm) made sure of it. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/9 "2014-06-13T18:19:40Z")
But only after that pesky, uncompliant fledgling democracy put that troublemaker Mossadegh into power. Can’t have somebody who won’t do as he’s told, can we? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/10 "2014-06-13T20:22:19Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > It is hard to create a democracy in a nation without a democratic tradition and it is doubly hard in Iraq where Sunni, Shiite, and Kurds are all shoehorned together in one place. I don’t think they want a Democracy. I believe they want their particular form of religion on top, not possibly voted down. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Fornicator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@The\_Fornicator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Fornicator)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/11 "2014-06-13T20:57:20Z")
I think they want to be left alone to forge their own way. Pretty much like people everywhere. You can’t skip 20, 50, 100 years, these things have a natural evolution to them. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/12 "2014-06-14T06:55:13Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Read what I wrote, not what you wish a strawman wrote so that you can argue against it. > > Many many Iraqis, both Shi’ite and Sunni, enjoyed life much more under Saddam than they do now. Similarly the 1953 coup brought 25 years of stability and prosperity to Iran. Strongmen are … strong. (And I don’t need to be reminded of how heinous Saddam was. That was well known to those of us on the rational side of the aisle way back when Cheney and Rumsfeld were supplying arms to Saddam.) > > For your comparison of Iraq and Iran (“interventions … pretty much par for the course”) to be sensical you must think the 2003 invasion of Iraq ushered in 25 years of prosperity and stability like the 1953 coup did for Iran. Did it? I have and I see no straw. Your view of Iran is nonsensical and premised on the assumption that a democratic Iran controlling its own oil would not have been prosperous. I bet it would have been more prosperous. And probably with a whole lot less of its citizens tortured and killed. And of course, all without an Islamic revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/13 "2014-06-14T10:55:22Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Even the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup d’état in Iran led to a period of prosperity, not equaled after their 1979 revolution until recently. I’m sure the people tortured and murdered just loved all that “prosperity”. And it was responsible for the creation of the Iranian theocracy. > [@septimus](#): > > One needn’t agree with self-interested U.S. interventions to acknowledge that, in many cases, they provided stability and enhanced global security. They bring tyranny, bloodshed, suffering and poverty. Lots and lots of rape and torture; we’ve always been fond of promoting those to control “insurgents”. > [@puddleglum](#): > > Americans fought in Iraq for nine years after the invasion. That is not a three day course in democracy. It was never about democracy at all; America has always been the enemy of democracy outside its own borders. It was about imposing an American-created regime on the Iraqi people whether they liked it or not, which is completely the opposite of democracy. What we did do is help send the message to Iraq and everyone else in the region that “democracy” is just a code word for mass slaughter, chaos, destruction, and a foreign-imposed regime. We’ve done an excellent job of discrediting the word. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/14 "2014-06-14T11:06:44Z")
The Iraq war was probably a mistake, but there is a time-limit on how far into the future fault can be assigned. The blame for the current trouble in Iraq lies mainly with the Iraqis – it’s their country if they want it to be stable and prosperous they have every possible to pursue policies and further cultural changes towards that goal. Supporting Islamic fundamentalism or ethnic strife is not it, but if they chose to do so anyway it’s their choice and their own fault. Secondary blame lies with the international jihad movement and international sponsors and enables – mainly of the Gulf states and Turkey. The fault which can be ascribed to the USA lies mainly in the support it has given to “rebels” operating in Syria, and perhaps a bit for the silly isolationist policies towards Iran. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/15 "2014-06-14T12:31:39Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’m sure the people tortured and murdered just loved all that “prosperity”. And it was responsible for the creation of the Iranian theocracy. > > They bring tyranny, bloodshed, suffering and poverty. Lots and lots of rape and torture; we’ve always been fond of promoting those to control “insurgents”. I was _ **NOT** _ arguing unequivocal support for the 1953 coup. I was suggesting that _ **IT MADE SENSE** _ from the standpoint of _ **U.S. self-interest** _ or in terms of global security. I wanted to contrast that with the 2003 Iraq invasion which was _pure idiocy even by (especially by) the standards of those who might have supported the 1953 coup_. Does this help? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/16 "2014-06-14T12:39:58Z")
The insurgency will fail. They just captured upwards of $500 million from the central bank in Mosul. That much money will not be used to finance their military operations. No one, no matter how faithful, is immune to being corrupted by greed. Half the control structure will line their pockets and end up on the beach in the South Pacific. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Fornicator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@The\_Fornicator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Fornicator)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/17 "2014-06-14T13:09:24Z")
Like all those heaving wooden palette loads of $100 bills special forces helicopters delivered to the Taliban back in the day? ---
**Author:** ![Conservian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@Conservian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Conservian)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/18 "2014-06-14T14:07:21Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Americans fought in Iraq for nine years after the invasion. That is not a three day course in democracy. It is hard to create a democracy in a nation without a democratic tradition and it is doubly hard in Iraq where Sunni, Shiite, and Kurds are all shoehorned together in one place. There is no blueprint or obvious plan. Plus the enemy always gets a vote in every war plan. There are thousands of terrorist fighters in Iraq, they either need to be co-opted or defeated. > It is not all up to Americans, the locals have agency. America could have done everything right and it would still be possible for Iraqis to squander it or we could have done everything wrong and they could have made it work anyway. They are trying to build democratic institutions in a country that was a brutal dictatorship for years, over a population riven with deep ethnic and religous divisions. > As has been pointed out Iran had a good twenty five year run under the Shah and then collapsed into theocracy. There is no way to know if this is the start of a Syrian style civil war or the growing pains of a new nation. The U.S. meddling in Iran became the impetus for Islamic purists to return to their roots of conquest and bloodshed. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/19 "2014-06-14T14:35:05Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Read what I wrote, not what you wish a strawman wrote so that you can argue against it. > > Many many Iraqis, both Shi’ite and Sunni, enjoyed life much more under Saddam than they do now. Similarly the 1953 coup brought 25 years of stability and prosperity to Iran. Strongmen are … strong. (And I don’t need to be reminded of how heinous Saddam was. That was well known to those of us on the rational side of the aisle way back when Cheney and Rumsfeld were supplying arms to Saddam.) > > For your comparison of Iraq and Iran (“interventions … pretty much par for the course”) to be sensical you must think the 2003 invasion of Iraq ushered in 25 years of prosperity and stability like the 1953 coup did for Iran. Did it? :dubious::rolleyes: Americans do seem to have an unparalleled ability to believe their own propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2014, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677/20 "2014-06-14T18:48:19Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > :dubious::rolleyes: > > Americans do seem to have an unparalleled ability to believe their own propaganda. That’s 'cuz we make the best propaganda in the world! USA! USA! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-terrorist-haven-of-iraq-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy/690677.md?page=2)