Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 52

50s or 60s? Think back to 2003 and this country called Iraq. I swear, Saddam Hussein is the stupidest man in history. If he was a US bitch just like the Saudi king and Iraq would never have been touched at all in the last 20 years, and it would be a very progressive and prosperous country rather than the chaotic shithole it is today. He deserves everything he got for being so impossibly stupid. I say that, because Iraq was a bit influential in the Mideast, especially in upholding more secular lines of politics/society. I think with a strong Iraq and secular Iran today, we wouldn't be having half the chaos in the Mideast we have today Khomeini and Uncle Sam pretty much turned that on its head though. It does crumble more and more. Despite what the media here says, Iraq is much worse in pretty much every regard. I think you seem to acknowledge that though.

Forget about Iraqi Kurds, you realize there's 15 million Kurds in Turkey? You also realize the Kurds in Turkey are a lot more extreme than the Kurds in Iraq (in 2010s, not 1980s)? If there's going to be an "independent Kurdistan" it's going to be in Turkey. So, what does Uncle Sam do? Does he back his Turkish ALLY in crushing Kurdish insurrections? Or does he directly support Kurdish insurgency and insurrection to gain a stronger hold over a weakened Turkey?

So your argument is, if a country is a little bit closer to Moscow than to Washington, we should fuck them up hard? I'm just glad the Soviets were nowhere near as aggressive as we've been since '45, or else we both probably would not have been born. The Cold War logic is sensationalist. Speaking about the 60s, we didn't mess with Nasser, the guy had free reign in who he chose to deal with, and he made "close" ties with the USSR, and yet, Egypt didn't become communist, didn't become under Soviet sovereignty, wasn't even a Soviet ally, like Cold War conspiracy theories like the domino effect would claim about countries who had any positive relations with the USSR.
Iraq and Iran had fair relations with lots of European countries and which they dealt with in those days. It wasn't just USSR. Still, that's no reason to overthrow a democracy to put in a tyrant so terrible that the Mideast's most secular country (at the time) put one of Islamic history's biggest radicals in power. Put Khomeini back in the 600s, and I'd be willing to bet he'd be a top radical, even Ali would be looking up to him.

In any case, you're backing my point. We wanted regimes loyal to us, not the USSR, so we overthrew them. However, many of these countries at various points did end up having free relations with USSR/Russia and we saw nothing anywhere near what Cold War conspiracy theorists in intel and govt. believed would happen.

I'm not saying that we are losing in the sense of "how fucked up is the Mideast". No I agree that it has many advantages in the strategic aspect.
I'm saying we are losing in the sense of we're seriously losing our hold and influence in the region. Sooner or later, the smoke clears, and if we're left with a large Islamic bloc that we have NO control over, kind of like how we couldn't mess with the dealings in Egypt that led to the overthrow of our best friend in the Mideast, Mubarak, things aren't going to be pretty. Right now, we're able to get involved because we're kicking them while they're down. That won't last forever unfortunately. When things stabilize, we're left with a lot of countries we can't control..

Also, speaking about Egypt, did you know it is the media center of the Mideast? They used to produce a lot of anti-Islamist media. Now that the Muslim Brotherhood is in power (which was demonized in Egyptian media), well, expect that media to be supporting Islamism and increased radicalism.

And who gives a shit about Hezbollah? Iran's been trying to "take over" Iraq since the Islamic Revolution and they are very, very influential there now. Iran won in Iraq, not us. I read this article during my spring break. It was the grimmest part of an otherwise enjoyable week. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/28/world/la-fg-iraq-iran-influence-20130329
Even if Iran loses Syria, Iraq is a far more significant gain.

Also, hearing it from Iraqis themselves, Christians mind you so there isn't any Sunni vs. Shi'a bias, yeah, Iran's winning out over Iraq.

As I and a couple of others have stated, what's going on in the Mideast in the short-term, good for US, long-term, probably really bad.

Here's something to consider about those 3 countries you mentioned. You can say we have Jordan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia still, but Jordan is only in it for the aid money, especially to deal with their huge influx of Christians and other people from Iraq and now, Syria. That said, Jordan is relatively unimportant to our strategic concerns comparing to other countries. Turkey (and Greece, funnily enough, that we unexpectedly made them "friendly") we bought out early in the Cold War. That said, Turkey is increasingly radicalizing and has issues and drama with things in Europe. They're in it for their interests as you said. But sooner or later, we're going to have to make a stand as things are heating up with Turkish Kurds. Do we stand by Turkey, or do we stand by Kurdish insurrectionists?

Saudi Arabia is the really important one. It's literally the American Krak des Chevaliers, except it's populated by "allied" "Saracens" rather than American "Crusaders". If we lose Saudi Arabia, we lose the Mideast, because it's in real terms all we have left. Because it has Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia has immense influence on the Islamic world barring Iran, I'm sure you know that. An increasingly Islamified Mideast does not help with that, either. Maybe 40 years ago most the Arab countries would have told those insane Wahhabis to go fuck themselves, but today, most Arab countries are very very Islamic, and the "holy" words and things from Saudi Arabia are far more significant in weight. The last thing we need is to have entire peoples going jihad on us, not just isolated terrorists.

You don't have to just worry about extremists. Moderate Muslims (people who are avid Muslim practicers but aren't extremists) are cause for concern too. Get them riled up, and you can have radicals. This is why I hold my tongue no matter what they say, even as much as I'd like to ask why there's issues with the society (not even politics) of the country they live in (US) and Christians. This is just in my experience, but the only Muslims I can be my normal, respectable culturally American self with are the ones who pretty much are only Muslim because they were born into a Muslim family. Otherwise, I be sure to be on my very, very best behavior. You may doubt me because maybe you know Lebanese folks considering there's a good amount in the US. Lebanese Muslims are not like other Muslims. They are the most chill and generally the most secular you will find, especially nowadays. From other places? You better tread carefully my friend.

To reiterate, I do agree with you, but only in the short-term. I can't see this at all being a long-term solution or advantage for the US.



Egypt was out of our control. We couldn't do anything about it. If Nasser is the most popular guy in modern Egyptian politics, Mubarak is pretty much the opposite. His buddies were against him, the whole country was against him, there wasn't anything anyone could do about it.

Libya? We were totally hoping those goons would be a winning ticket. Didn't turn out that way. We hoped Islamic Dawa would be in Iraq. Nope, instead Iran won there, which is even worse. Otherwise, if we wanted "stable ground", we would have supported Gaddafi and Assad in suppressing revolts instigated/led at least in large part by Islamic extremists who hate our guts more than they hate these regimes they're fighting. These were stable places before the outbreak of revolt. By the way, we weren't propping up Assad or Gaddafi or the Tunisian guy. The only dictator we did prop up that was ousted was Mubarak, and the case against him was nationwide, even in his own ranks.

We're grasping at straws here. We put more effort than we ever have into taking charge of Egypt for 30 years and especially Iraq in the last decade, and in the end, we couldn't even keep hold on those. Our 30 years with Egypt was the hallmark of US success in the Mideast, and now we've lost that. We don't have a long-term plan in the Mideast, but I don't know when our policy has been anything other than short-sighted. But the fact of the matter is, the US doesn't like a guy who doesn't play in our court and the Sunni Turks and Arabs hate Shiites (and branches).

You're right, in short term, taking Assad out helps us. But long-term, it makes things a lot worse. If Assad is ousted, there's going to be a new dictatorship, except it's going to be Islamic and more erratic and more extreme, and once they get past the "thank you America" period in terms of relations and once they stabilize (which yes, these countries are going to stabilized sooner or later, DEB), they're going to turn on us. Do we really want that?