I’ve never even read COMMENTARY on this question…but it’s one that has perplexed me…
Why do you think HW Bush (Sr.) feel that it was the most prudent thing to do to keep Saddam in place…and GW did not?
Now…I HAVE heard it mentioned that HW (Sr.) had agreement with the Coalition to do what he did (1) remove Saddam from Kuwait 2) weaken his Army and 3) NO MORE.
Retrospectively; it seems like leaving these killers and madmen in place makes more sense (in terms of “stability” of the ME)…
Did HW “know” something that his son just ignored?
It is my opinion that Bush 41 realized that the U.S had reached what Clauswitz calls “the culminating point of victory” and that the UNSC resolution that authorized military force had reached its limit.
And it was presumed that he’s not an external threat anymore and that removing him would create a power vacuum and plunge Iraq into chaos, as actually did happen later.
But if just a little bit more effort was involved in propping up Kurdistan beside the no fy zone, things would be different…
Yes, the dictators in ME provide “stability”. The problem is, they eventually grow old and die. Mubarak provided “stability” in Egypt for over three decades before being ousted. Sometimes it’s just an.excuse to support.an ossified regime in power.
I sincerely believe that the Arab Spring marked the beginning of the end of the classical dictatorship we’ve seen in the middle east. Unfortunately as we’ve seen, this hasn’t sparked the “enlightenment” many in the west (including Obama) believed it would throughout the ME. While we may have considered the shift from tyrannical power to a more populist approach to be inline with Western Ideals the human rights and common decency that we thought would accompany it did not. I think this was also the same miscalculation by the Bush administration in establishing Democracy in Iraq.
I’ve heard it many times that Islam is still in its pre-enlightenment phase, too many illiterate followers and a common standard of barbarism in every day life that the western world hasn’t endured in 300 years. It seems fairly easy to identify now but hindsight is 20/20…
Sig, loppar and Bis (IMO) have hit the mark on this.
Let me add something about “The Arab Spring”.
Sig is right…it was wishful thinking on just about everyone’s part that an uprising “from and by the people” was more in line with Western Ideals on freedom, human rights and decency.
Time has shown, however, that there is a HUGE difference between people wanting “freedom” (in a Western sense) and Self-Determination to install Islamic Theocracies. While this may not have been the case in Iran…it certainly has been the case everywhere else.
And Gkhan…again…who exactly were we supposed to “support” and how?
While “the people” may have appeared on the surface to be the ones to support…many were only looking for another Thug and Dictator to run things, only this time in religious garb. It also has proven that the ones wearing the religious garb had the most firepower and backing.
And are anti-Western. And export terrorism abroad.
We should have stood by governments who were our allies for decades.
And also, we foolishly did nothing to support the will of the people against the government of Iran. So I guess human rights mean nothing to this administration when it had a chance to take down a decades old enemy of epic proportions. The ONE government we should have tried to topple…and this time we did nothing.
Erdogan was elected democratically on an islamist platform. His first election win with AKP was overturned by a military intervention/coup who were the guarantors of Turkey’s secularist constitution.
Just to illustrate how much things have changed, before Erdogan’s AKP came to power ten years ago headscarves were illegal in Turkey in schools and government institutions.
In the meantime, both the US and the EU strongly pushed Turkey to loosen the military oversight over civilian politics, to ensure a “democratic” political system.
When he finally came to power through elections, Erdogan spent years consolidating his position before striking against the military.
That’s just one example, I can name others - in the first democratic elections in the Gaza strip, Hamas won with an overwhelming majority…
But it’s not all black and white - in Tunisia, the country where the Arab spring started, the secularists seem to have won, prompting an exodus of hardliners to join ISIS in Syria.
As the Russian led Syrian AF started bombing the Kurds again after several years (the US is meekly only protecting it’s SOF operatives), it seems those pesky gender equality loving socialists are again getting fucked over. Everybody saw that coming, but it’s still makes one angry.
Here’s a picture of a Kurdish YPJ female fighters embracing a local resident in Manjib immediately after it was liberated from ISIS.
Everyone is shocked the Muslims elect the most radical people to lead them. They are Muslims, so of course that’s what they are going to do. Like when idiot Rumsfeld said Iraq would never have an Islamic government. What did he expect them to vote for fundamentalist Christians? Idiot.
Kinda reminds me of the battles both here on PWI and on the debate stages about “who is more conservative/liberal” as candidates vied for their party nominations.
And all that grumbling and thousands and thousands of posts and people will still vote for their party respective nominees.
Same thing in the ME - you vote for your guys, your coreligionists. So the actual decision is in the “primaries” so to speak - who takes the leadership of the sunni and shia factions.
And this is where the funding, like in the US, decides. If you have an unlimited supply of funds from, let’s say, Saudi Arabia you can do all that charitable stuff Muslims like to brag about - helping the poor, free meals, improvement of village/neighborhood infrastructure, education (naturally, islamic one), youth sports etc and win over your faction. That’s what Hamas did in Gaza - also, it helped them that Fatah was spectacularly corrupt.
So the results of each “democratic” election is preordained by the census data. As I’ve mentioned in one post before, that’s the reasons censuses are such a contentious issue (Lebanon prohibits censuses by law), whose publication is usually followed by rioting.
An old tactic. Timur used it to gain sympathizers while also being one of the world’s worst mass murderers. Yeah, he wasn’t all bad. He was charitable…
No. Not even close. These are paramilitary troops that will be used to kill sunnis in Syria and Yemen, not blow themselves up.
Iranian leadership is very concerned about Revolutionary Guard casualties in Syria. As the shias are at a numerical disadvantage there, Iran had to send their RG as Alawites have exhausted their manpower reserves and the Hezbollah are badly stretched.
To illustrate their manpower problem, Iran is forcing Afghan refugees into serving in Syria. Let’s just say they aren’t exactly thrilled either.
As the Alawite morale is sagging, high ranking RG officers had to be present at the frontline, which resulted in major losses among the NCO/officer cadre.
Despite the propaganda (notice that it’s directed exclusively against sunnis) and the glorification of “martyrs”, this affects the RG morale. Think USSR again - these guys joined the RG for prestige, money, social status and power, not to get killed in Syria by Al Qaeda fighters and paraded around cut in pieces.
So the “Liberation Army” is a way to find more cannon fodder - why should the regime elite die in Yemen when some idiots can.
Originally, the plan was to remove Saddam. Why he back tracked on that I am not sure. Perhaps, he thought all the Security Council resolutions were enough to keep Saddam in check and therefore was not worth the extended engagement. Maybe it was a weak moment. Lack of foresight…
I would reckon that the objective was so easily obtained, ousting Saddam out of Kuwait, that the extended engagement and house to house fighting that may have been necessary to remove Saddam was unattractive compared to, what basically amounted to having complete control over Saddam. And it worked for a little while, Saddam was licking his wounds for a while and was a good boy, for a while…
Then he stated violating resolution after resolution. No allowing inspectors in, killing Kurds, little things like that, snubbing his nose at the aggressor, so to speak.
It got bad enough that Saddam’s ouster was written into U.S. law, signed by President Clinton (the first) in 1998. Had Bush 41 had that insight or foresight, he may have rethought the whole letting a weakened Saddam terrorize the country for another decade.
Even if we had not gone back in, in 2003 there is no guarantee that we wouldn’t have gone to war with Iraq at some point. They were a constant and consistent thorn in the side, subverting U.S. interests at every possible turn.
I think people’s view of history is a little 2 dimensional. Believing that has we not gone to war with Iraq in 2003 we never would have. The chances were higher than not, that war with Iraq was going to happen again. It was a matter of time.
Which looks as if the influence and arm sales are only going to rise.
With the administration basically leaving the Israelis to fend for themselves, Saudi is our only friend left. At least the only friend we have that has any real power and influence in the region.
This Administration has not; and no U.S. administration will ever; leave Israel to “fend for themselves”.
People seem to be mixing personality and policy differences between the President and Netenyahu as representative of our support for Israel. And Conservatives have been more than happy to fuel the flames with rhetoric that isn’t true.
