IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

There are those who feel that if we had left a residual force in Iraq that the Iraqi army and the Iraqi politics would have been much better.  Well, I am far from convinced even disregarding the fact that Milaki wanted us to leave.  After we beat Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, in Afghanistan we did leave a residual force that varied between 10,000 and 20,000 troops, and the Taliban came back stronger than ever, although Al Qaeda remained subdued in Afghanistan but grew elsewhere.  I suspect that President Obama is closer to the truth in saying that if we had left 20,000 troops there, there would just have been that many more Americans at risk.

It was really depressing that, after 8 years of training, that the first time the Iraqi army was tested, it just disbanded and turned over all the equipment to ISIS.  A woman reporter who interviewed a number of the troops that took tail said that all the deserters said they woke up in the morning and all the leaders were gone.  They feel that the officers and non-coms were bribed to disappear.  Some speculated that some of the leaders actually were given positions in ISIS.  Somehow this sort of corruption sounds realistic.  I also suspect that with time the Sunnis of Iraq will get tired of the ruthless Islamic religious right and start to rebel against them.

One hopes that the Iraqi army and militias can keep ISIS out of southern Iraq where most of the oil is.

As I have said elsewhere, I think we are trying to push something in Iraq that isn't there short of there being a ruthless dictator.*  Opinion seems to be gravitating towards supporting the Kurds to become independent of Iraq.  I presume this makes Turkey a bit nervous because there is a Kurdish part of Turkey contiguous with the Iraqi Kurds that might like to join them in a Kurdistan.

*http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/07/syria-vs-libya.html

SYRIA VS LIBYA

One hears of dreams that if only we had supported the mob in Syria in the beginning, Assad (a bad dictator to be sure) would have been overthrown and all would be beautiful.

Well, we did provide air cover to the mob in Libya that overthrew Gaddafi and look how things are today - a real mess.  In this case we had most everyone in our favor, the Brits, the Arab league, etc.  Now it looks like rival groups are at war with each other, and we have abandoned our embassy there.  Not quite what we hoped for although Libyans seem to have a high regard for the U.S. (54% in a 2012 Gallop poll).*

We did give at least moral support to the mob that overthrew Mubarak (a U.S. supporter by the way).  Is Egypt now much better off than with Mubarak?  You be the judge.  It may be that Egypt will eventually move toward a real democracy, but there sure are "slips twixt cup and lip."

I'm reminded that, in the Desert Storm war against Saddam Hussein to push him out of Kuwait at the request of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, President G.H.W. Bush did not press the battle to overthrow Saddam because you don't know who will take over.  It could be someone even worse.  True we did sort of think that the generals would push him out.  But the religious and ethnic complexity of Iraq may defy solution without a ruthless dictator.  I guess I belong to a growing number of people who feel we should let Iraq split into their more natural constituencies.  But if we should allow this, I suspect that the Sunni's and Kurds would push ISIL out of their areas.  Whether the Shia could do the same for their area remains to be seen.

And is Mali much better which has been hit by the rebound of the Arab Spring?**  Only Tunisia where the Arab Spring started seems to have some sort of order.***


* I find it a bit disturbing that Gaddafi promised to give up weapons of mass destruction if we stopped working to overthrow him.  He gave up weapons of mass destruction, but we helped overthrow him anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
*** http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arezo-yazd/turning-the-tide-three-ye_b_4610148.html