Posted on 03/13/2015 10:20:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A prominent Iraqi Sunni cleric has urged Sunni military/militias to exercise restraint. The Iranian General Suleiman has also threatened any he is supervising with severe punishment for revenge activities.
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/03/13/in-tikrit-fight-iraq-sunni-preacher-urges-militia-restraint/21153034/?ncid=webmail35
Meanwhile, we don’t seem to have to worry about our oil supply in the near future as all our storage facilities are close to being full. I hope we are refilling our Strategic Petroleum Reserve with these low prices. If Congressional sequester has made funds to buy such oil unavailable I hope they will exercise prudence asap to fill her up while oil is cheap.
http://fortune.com/2015/03/13/oil-is-back-in-the-doldrums-as-the-iea-warns-of-glut/
(Iranian influence over Iraq) “Kinda the obvious conclusion once Saddam was removed as a buffer against Iran.”
Only if the US was not in there. An Iraqi Government supported by the US, with US assets stationed there, could have been a more powerful check on Iran than Sadaam.
I’d rather have Saddam losing boys and treasure fighting Iran that US.
Have to wonder if this is part of the Obama’s “deal making” with Iran. They clean up his “Arab Spring” mess, and in exchange they get their bomb.
“I’d rather have Saddam losing boys and treasure fighting Iran that US.”
If those were the only options. But Sadaam posed other problems that required taking him out. He was not safe to leave in place, and was therefor not a good option for countering Iran.
Saddam was much safer than having the unstable Iraq today and the ISIS wildfire spreading across the Middle East.
“Saddam was much safer than having the unstable Iraq today and the ISIS wildfire spreading across the Middle East.”
The ISIS wildfire started in Syria, after Obama, Erdogan and the Qataris decided to overthrow that government. The ISIS wildfire is commanded by folks released from prison in 2009 by the Obama administration. And ISIS is a product of a strain of militant Islam that has been recruiting and organizing for decades throughout the Islamic World - the Muslim Brotherhood giving birth to al Queda, in turn giving birth to ISIS (formerly known as al Queda in Iraq). That phenomena is quite independent of Sadaam.
So it is a false choice between having Sadaam or ISIS.
And Sadaam was far from safe for the USA. His military was actively shooting at US aircraft over no-fly zones that we were maintaining a decade after the Gulf War. His intelligence agencies and special forces were among the world’s largest, if not the world’s largest, state sponsor of terrorism. They were constantly looking for ways to target the USA.
The Salman Pak facility south of Baghdad for training a wide range of international terrorist groups, had not only the fuselages of the most common commercial aircraft to practice hijackings, but also classrooms with special equipment for storing and handling chemical and biological weapons, as well as nuclear materials.
Iraqi intelligence has been implicated in the planning of several attacks on the USA, such as the attendance of Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, a member of the Fedayeen Saddam (then apparently working at the direction of the Iraqi embassy in Malaysia), at the notorious 5-8 January al Queda meeting in Kuala Lumpur, with three of the 9-11 hijackers.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/152lndzv.asp?pg=1
Sadaam was a brutal anti-American dictator whose Ba’ath Party’s ideology was similar to the Nazis (Socialism based on race rather than class), and who modeled his genocide and ethnic cleansing operations against his Kurdish minorities on the Nazi Einsatzgruppen of Eastern Europe. The death rate in Iraq due to Government killing under Sadamm was greater than at the height of the sectarian violence in 2007. He kept a pool of nitric acid in one of his palaces for lowering prisoners into, and his son Uday kept lions to feed prisoners to.
Sadaam constantly sought ways to attack or destroy America.
The ISIS roots began in Iraq, after the invasion, like most the embers that have spread across the ME.
Iraq is ruined, Iran as risen. That is what we face today.
Evan Iran has to clean up after Bush and Obama. Bush released far more prisoners from Gitmo than Obama did as well. Including members who attacked our assets in Benghazi.
Sadaam did not keep Iran in check in Lebanon, or Syria or Yemen, or anywhere but Iraq.
Sadaam did host the forerunner of ISIS, al Queda in Iraq, before the US invasion. He even had Ayman al Zawahiri, second in command of al Queda visit in 1999. Zarqawi, the head of al Queda in Iraq, was was in regular contact with Iraqi intelligence, while a guest in Iraq, before the invasion.
ISIS’ roots, as stated before, was as al Queda in Iraq, prior to the US invasion - the same organization, simply renamed. Al Queda existed well before the US invasion. Its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood existed well before that (they were a major ally of the Nazi Party during WWII). The fundamentalist Wahhabi brotherhoods which inspired the Muslim Brotherhood, existed back under the end of the Ottoman Empire. Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States have been funding the rise of these groups and their ideologies since they became rich on oil in the 60’s and 70’s.
There is a lot more going on in the world than just what we do. It is overly simplistic, and simply wrong, to simply lay the blame for a screwed up Middle East on the actions of the US, or the presence/absence of Sadaam’s dictatorship.
It is overwhelmingly the fault of bad actors in the region, and some of the worst political and religious ideologies on Earth.
We disagree on our views. The principle powers were overthrown by Bush and Obama and now we face the resulting storm.
ISIS grew up fighting in Iraq. The counter to it being a trap for terrorist groups is the obvious fact that they get better in the trap and spread from there.
Since you know that there will never be peace there, then you know that US being there will never create peace.
You want US to die for the Middle East, no thanks. Our foreign welfare has supplied them for too long, they can kill each other. Saudi Arabia is one of the largest spenders on military equipment. Mainly from US.
They can take it against ISIS if they want. But, we both know they will not. They will continue to allow ISIS to kill the Shia just as they have always wanted.
“Saddam kept Iran in check enough for US.”
He did not check Iran enough to keep them from conducting the first major suicide attack on the US of the modern era - the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut - killing 299 American and French servicemen, and effectively driving the US out of Lebanon during the Reagan administration.
In essence however, I agree with you that American blood is too precious to waste, and to the maximum extent possible we should leave it to them to fight out their differences.
I have deployed to the region repeatedly during my military career, and have taken part in wars over there. They are a mixed bag of people, just as we are (although they suffer some dramatically worse political and cultural influences). I have developed sympathy for good or innocent people anywhere, and have seen and talked with folks who suffered horribly. As a Christian, it was hard to not empathize - Sadaam committed Nazi-like atrocities.
Bottom Line to me is that we have friends and enemies in the region, and vital interests for ourselves and our allies, over the oil and the export of terrorism and jihadism. I wish that we could just ignore the problems, but they won’t leave us alone. I am glad to see that it is not Americans dying over there in Tikrit now though - very glad.
I also agree that the Sunni/Shia problem is huge in the region. I have coined the term “Summer of Death” for 2015 in Iraq, and I think that we are going to see it.
Anyhow, thanks for the considerate chat - it has been a pleasure discussing it with you.
RLTW
De opresso liber
The Sauuuuuudis are in deep Shiite. They had better start preparing for war REAL FAST, LIKE YESTERDAY.
In fact, they should just start bombing Iran NOW, because pretty soon the Iranians will take over all the oil fields “for security purposes” and start pumping 24/7 to the max, driving down the oil and hurting the Saudis more....probably this has already happened. Once the youth in Saudi start to complain that their lavish lifestyle is not increasing every year.....bullets will take down the Royal Family like rain.......then who gets the Saudi Oil...THATS WHAT I WANT TO KNOW...... the Euros or the Chinesos?
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