11 thoughts on “Iraq”

    1. Exactly. Who owns the Iraqi failure depends on who tells the tale, if it’s the MSM telling… well you know where they’re going to place blame.

    2. Bush (41) is probably the most at fault for the state of Iraq today, but there’s plenty of fault to spread around to Clinton, W, and Obama as well. Every one of them made colossal blunders when it came to Iraq. Bush 43 is probably somewhere in the middle in terms of culpability, as at least he had the brains and the guts to fix a lot of what went wrong. In many ways Iraq in 2008 (post Anbar awakening) was in a state where potentially with proper guidance and a proper SOF agreement it could have ended up being reasonably stable. Unfortunately, the Iraqi people made some bad electoral choices and Barack dutifully pissed away whatever advantage we had in the region by pulling a Clintonian Mogadishu retreat as a PR move.

  2. Democrats owned it starting in January, 2009. There were Dem super-majorities in Congress and they owned the white house.

  4. Iraq was always an artificial nation, created for the benefit of the British when they carved up the Ottoman Empire with the Treaty of Sevres which created the modern mess in the Middle East.

    It’s really three different “nationalities”, Kurds, Shiia and Sunni, and that has been the source of most of the problems in Iraq. That is why I see only one stable solution, a division into three different nations around each of the groups. Until them it will continue to be a real mess no matter who’s Administration it is.

    1. To a certain extent it doesn’t matter. Balkanizing the region based on ethnicity or sect isn’t a long term solution. There may be some limited advantage to it but ultimately if it results in the same level of violence except across national boundaries then little will have been gained. Indeed, that’s precisely the problem that exists now in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and to a lesser extent Turkey.

      At the end of the day the people of the middle east need to embrace peaceful coexistence. Balkanization may enable some of the more stable areas (like Iraqi Kurdistan) to get along better for a while, but if the region is still beset by religious violence for the foreseeable future then adding new invisible lines on the map is just pissing into the wind.

      The elephant in the room remains the same problem it’s always been for nearly two generations: radical Islam and backwards Arab traditionalist culture. Until the toxic and poisonous elements of the religion and culture are excised there is going to be a lot of unrest in the persian/mesopotamian/levantine region. But that’s a very, very tough problem to solve, and one that is almost impossible to solve entirely externally as well.

      1. Robin is not wrong when he says Balkanization just moves the problem around.

        Without a political consensus, it’s just misery redux.

        I can think of two case studies of somewhat artificial countries re bounded

        1) Czechoslovakia
        and
        2) Yugoslavia

        The Slovaks had a referendum saying “Vote our way on fiscal policy or we will secede”. The
        Czechs said “Oh don’t for secession, we’d hate that” the Slovaks voted to secede, the Czechs
        had a quick referendum and voted to concur and sent Slovakia on it’s way. The Czech’s went
        and lined up with Germany on trade and technology and Slovakia is still selling hayseed and moonshine.

        Yugoslavia: The provinces all wanted to split up, but Serbia wanted land, resources and money
        and was willing to use force to try and hold Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia. Lots of blood
        all around and Serbia is still a mess.

        if Iraq had a national referendum and say 66% voted for a breakup, then it would happen
        but absent consensus, it’s going to be a disaster

        1. Seberia will long be a mess, but the others achieved stability without it.

          Its important to realize that the ‘nations” are still at the “tribal level” of organization, and the first step is to break them into their tribal groups to reduce the inner tribal conflicts that occur when they all try to be under a single government, a democratic government at that without the groups involved having any tradition or experience with democracy and political freedom.

    2. “Iraq was always an artificial nation…It’s really three different “nationalities””

      Historically, yes Iraq was artificially created. The land has changed hands many times over history and many different groups of people live there. This is the story of every country. People can choose to work together to form their own country even if they have historical, ethnic, and religious affinities to other countries or groups of people.

      Indeed, this is what happened in Iraq during the surge. The Sunni tribes rejected the Sunni Islamist militants and joined together with the Americans to push them out of the country. The Shiites rejected the Shia Islamist militants and fought against them. In both cases the militants were proxies for Iran, Syria, and AQ. The Iraqi people banded together with American troops and kicked the crap out of these militant groups. Iraqis were siding with Iraqis rather than religious sect.

      That doesn’t mean that there were no divisions between Iraqis but it does mean that it was not inevitable that they could not be their own country. What was needed was a sustained diplomatic effort to help them build the government institutions and instill in them an appreciation for the rule of law and the dangers of corruption. Good governance isn’t innate and it doesn’t just spring up over night.

      It is sad that our President who claims to want to solve problems with diplomacy had the opportunity in Iraq and yet did nothing. Iraq needed bureaucratic help and yet Obama couldn’t spare any bureaucrats. How crazy is that? It is like we live in bizzaro world. Before you know it we will be arming and training Islamic militants to overthrow their governments.

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