The major lesson of the Iraq war is our country and leadership cannot foresee the consequences of any war with the middle east countries with sufficient accuracy to be attempting to micromanage the geopolitics of those countries.
How they see the world is thru the eyes of Islam and that which their leaders dictate they see and believe alone....so there can never be more than conflict between us. No amount of effort on our part will change the trajectory the Muslim Nations live and die by.
That said...we continue to be used by Muslim Leaders because they are well versed at doing just that among their own...centuries they’ve practiced and perfected deception among themselves..it IS their way of life and perfectly acceptable for them. So how can any negotiations/agreements or wars ever accomplish more than a stall to their ultimate agenda of Islam (Political and otherwise) Dominance over the world? as that agenda will never change.
As long as we let them live and procreate in our own countries..the Islamic push for Dominance will continue....War or not the push continues unabated.
Great summation. There ill never be long term peace unless one faction of Muslims wins totally over all others and over all non Muslims.
>>The major lesson of the Iraq war is our country and leadership cannot foresee the consequences of any war with the middle east countries with sufficient accuracy to be attempting to micromanage the geopolitics of those countries.
Worth saying again. And again. And again.
To take this down to specifics, Paul Bremer was a complete disaster for us in Iraq. Foggy Bottom in general should never be listened to about the Middle East ever again, as you note, absent a complete ground-up rebuild. Get rid of all the Ivy League Leftist theories and start over, and they *might* have a chance of having a clue.
Here is some great commentary on Bremer by Jerry Pournelle:
Bremer’s Diary
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view397.html#Bremer1
The man had no clue what he was doing.
When you compare Bremer to post-WWII military proconsuls like MacArthur and Lucius Clay, who understood military operations and use of force, you instantly see why Iraq went so wrong.
From all the above comments I must have missed something in the story. Not saying I’d believe anything a guy with a rag wrapped around his head says but the Masked Stranger from the ISIS seems to have said he supported the local folks and wanted to take on Iran. Since Maliki’s goons are nowhere to be found I say let them go at it. I’ve always said let’s give every one in Asia Minor a weapon and let them fight until every last grudge is settled. The whole bunch may yet be a century away from adopting flush toilets but in the mean time pen them in and let them fling flipflops until they’ve all earned a virgin.
GI’s all know they take a chance on being double crossed by our faux leaders. It falls to the rest of us to support the wounded and honor the fallen. Once in awhile a weak kneed leader gets what’s coming to him——SEMPER FI.