Yeah, if there’s one thing we can do that’ll make the Turks happy, its supporting an independent Kurdistan. Turkey hasn’t been fighting a civil war against the PKK since 1984 or anything. I won’t even touch the added problems with Iran (note how much of Kurdish inhabited land is in Iran) or the fact that it means overtly abandoning the Iraqi central government.
Why? In what conflict have the Iraqi forces not completely collapsed?
There’s not much we can do. Let’s let NATO, i.e. Europe talk about it a lot, and let Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria and whoever else in the middle east that wants to, sort it out. ISIS is their problem, no one likes them, so let them handle it.
This makes sense:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/on-the-cusp-of-the-deluge
Lavrov makes sense:
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5487019/
Bush ‘Very Comfortable’ with Iraq Decision
I wonder if Dubya has heard the news. Or more importantly, has he learned anything by witnessing the Iraqi Shiite army run from the first need to actually fight for the right to ‘live in a free society’.
History is here for Dubya. I wonder if he has learned that you can’t bomb and shoot a free society into existence.
Under every conceivable scenario, no US troops should ever be deployed to Iraq again. Cheney and W. already had their fun with the colossal fuckup in Iraq, and like it or not, this is the kind of chaos that has arisen out of that fiasco.
Beyond that, I’m sure that Obama will be more than willing to drone-kill some of these combatants, as if that’ll actually accomplish something. As long as the US maintains a global monopoly on drone airstrikes, we’ll basically bomb any third-world country if we can come up with a reasonable excuse to do it.
He’ll hear the news about the same time Biden does.
[QUOTE=JoeBiden2010]
“I am very optimistic about – about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government,” said Biden.
“I spent – I’ve been there 17 times now. I go about every two months – three months. I know every one of the major players in all of the segments of that society. It’s impressed me. I’ve been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences.”
[/QUOTE]
It’ll go back to being all down to Bush now quicker than you can say Barack Obama.
We already gave them that help, and plenty of it.
Mr. Bush: “There’s a hornets’ nest at peace, no threat to anyone. Let’s whack it with a baseball bat and see what happens! I had a lot of fun like that back on the ranch when I was a kid.”
Mr. Biden: "The hornets seem to have calmed down. Let’s walk away slowly and hope for the best. Anyway, we’re just getting stung while we hang around here.
To conflate the approaches of Bush and Biden shows grotesque confusion.
The fact that a huge, well-equipped and supposedly well-trained (yea - good job there guys, good job) made the ARVN look like The New Model Army and just threw down their weapons and ran makes me wonder about Afghanistan when a few taliban with viciously pointed sticks rock up.
No, actually it doesn’t. Biden’s ‘approach’ was a naked grab for credit to claim that a peaceful, democratic Iraq would be Obama’s ‘greatest legacy’ even though the Democrats would have had zero to do with such an outcome. And if you can’t see that then you’ve been sipping the Obama Kool-Ade way too long.
Or is it your serious contention that Biden wasn’t trying to claim the credit for such an outcome for the Democrats? Immaterial now, of course, as I say, it will all be Bush’s fault again.
There are plenty of armed entities. Neither of the other two major religious factions concede a Kurdish Kirkuk. I might be wrong but Ive not seen one ounce of common sense or reasonable compromise in Iraq since Day 1.
Politics is All or Nothing, to the victor the spoils and to the losers a continual kicking.
Question. How is Iran viewing this?
Iran (the actual victors of the Iraq War) and the backers of Malaki will react by re-activating their semi-autonomous sectarian militia allies. They won’t sit by while their allies are beaten like a dog.
And I expect the USA will be secretly okay with it as the least worst option given that the government is essentially collapsing.
The USA and the govt will also be doing the whole arm and bribe the tribal militias to fight.
It’s just a whole lot of messes.
Iraq just isn’t a real country. There’s a Kurdish one, there’s the Sunni in the north who fit better with their fellows who are across the increasingly fictitious border. and the Shia in the south who are co-religionists with Iran (although not wanting to be part of Iran).
And they think after decades of Sunni oppression Iraq and the Big Boot is theirs.
Meanwhile you have Saddam’s old mob based around Tikrit who want the Good Old Days of non-religious, we’re the boss dictatorship.
And you have Saudi Arabia waging proxy war on Iran by supporting Sunni militias.
And meanwhile everyone wants a slice of Kirkuk because that’s where the oil is.
All this being why people who had some understanding of the complexities opposed the invasion, as much as we hated Saddam.
Whoa. Got a cite?
I wrote about the possibility of this sort of thing over in the other thread. Just didn’t expect it to happen that quickly…
Yes, I did read the OP, and I gave my answer: this isn’t a problem for “the West”, but for the US and the UK.
If the US wants to invade a foreign country, topple its government, and set up a client state, thereby destabilizing an entire region, that’s their choice.
And when their client state collapses in disarray, that’s their problem. Imperial powers have to take responsibility for their imperialism.
The only accurate thing Colin Powell said was his warning to Bush II: “Mr President, if you break it, you buy it.”
I think the Pottery Barn rule is less apt than the Humpty Dumpty rule. This egg is broken and there is no way it gets put back together, at least by the west. As long as there are those who are willing to do whatever it takes, to kill or be killed in order to rule, then those are who will ultimately prevail. We can arm and train the side we like, but ultimately if they aren’t willing to kill or be killed, they will not last in power. Baghdad will fall and I think fall soon, the only thing the west should do is bugger out until they Iraqis sort it all out.
Oh, and I would just add to my former answer: if Turkey comes under attack as a result of the destabilised situation in Iraq, then of course NATO should protect Turkey - that is one of the foundation principles of NATO: an attack on a member state is an attack on all, and all come to the defence.
But that’s a far cry from NATO intervening in Iraq proper.
Accept that Iraq is not a nation, never has been, never can be. It’s a historical artifact of decolonization, no more coherent than most other such countries.
The partition into Shiastan, Sunnistan, and Kurdistan cannot be prevented, and probably shouldn’t be. If that’s what the people there want, they’re going to get it; the only question is the death count. No need to risk anyone else’s lives trying to stop it. Let the fire burn until it burns out, just try to keep it from spreading.
No, it isn’t America’s problem to try to fix, we pulled out with a single government and a then-functioning army in place there. It isn’t any other former colonial power’s responsibility to “fix” any of their former colonies either, after setting them up as best they can. But I do understand the view from outside that there is no burden so great, no cost so high, that the Americans shouldn’t be demanded to bear it.
Hey, I agree with your position. I’m responding to aldiboronti, who is calling for western intervention. I think intervention is useless, but if anyone wants to intervene, it’s solely the US/UK/Australia; there is no obligation on any other western country to intervene.
The decision should be based on whether or not U.S. citizens are willing to take on more debt due to increased military costs.
