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
About Me
- Everett Estes Ford
- Sandhills Area, NC, United States
- Born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author is a published poet and author of the monograph "Lead Isotopes." He received a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1960 and a D.Sci. (Honorus causa) from the University of Missouri in 1989. As a scientist, he published more than 100 technical papers in the areas of isotope geology, mineral resources, and environmental concerns. He was involved in the Apollo Program and post Apollo Program in the late 1960s and early 1970s and the National Acid Precipitation Program with the National Park Service in the 1980s. He was the first Western scientist to give the Vernadsky Memorial Lecture in Moscow during detente in 1976. He worked for 34 years for the U.S. Geological Survey in a variety of research and administrative positions, including tours as Chief of the Branch of Isotope Geology and as the Assistant Director of Research. He was president of the Geochemical Society, and, as an amateur tennis player, he served as President of the Fairfax County, Virginia, Golden Racquets Tennis Club for two years.
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