Fareed Zakaria: Who lost Iraq? The Iraqis did, with an assist from George W. Bush

            

"Evangelist Pat Robertson Calls Bush's Invasion Of Iraq "Nonsense" and "Bill Of Goods"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/06/televangelist-pat-roberson-calls-bushs.html

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Alan: If George Bush and Dick Cheney had not waged their Whimsy War on Iraq, thus undermining a stable country that was a staunch ally of Ronald Reagan -- a country with no WMD and no involvement in 9/11 -- the current ISIS crisis would not exist. 

ISIS' seizure of Mosul and Tikrit (Saddam Hussein's hometown) would have been inconceivable --- like The Tea Party winning the Oval Office, both houses of Congress and packing the Supreme Court with nine judges all named Antonin Scalia.  

The prospect of a 9/11-type terror strike launched on the United States from Iraq or Syrian soil would have been unthinkable except in the delusional minds of paranoid xenophobes whose constituency (spearheaded by Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bolton) was solely responsible for kicking every hornet's nest in the Islamic world, then wondering why blowback was biting them in the ass.

If tables were turned, Americans would have already launched terror attacks across the Middle East. For that matter, the entire Iraq War -- from inception onward -- has been an unrelenting exercise in state-sponsored terrorism perpetrated by Uncle Sam.

During the run-up to The Iraq War, everyone with an internet connection and a folded cortex was aware that the invasion was monstrously stupid -- and grotesquely unjust.  (Pope Benedict XVI declared the war unjust. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/07/pope-benedict-xvi-questions-if-modern.html)

Remember "Shock and Awe?" Remember "The Power of Pride?" 

Who's shocked now? 

And what about the pride - which, predictably, came before the fall - and wasted all those lives? 

The dead, the maimed.

The Americans, the Iraqis?

 Since the Vietnam War, two lessons scream at us. 

"You don't get involved in somebody else's Civil War." 

"And you don't start them." 

When we forget either lesson, American soldiers come home in caskets having accomplished nothing. 

We owe our troops trustworthy guidance, not swashbuckle, bluster and simian chest-thumping.

Fear-driven Christians,  cheerleading the Apocaplypse,  are the most reprehensible actors in this whole sordid scenario.

They are America's Taliban.  http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-newsroom-tea-party-is-americas.html

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"Terrorism And The Other Religions"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/04/terrorism-and-other-religions-juan-cole.html

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Fareed Zakaria: Who Lost Iraq? 

The Iraqis Did, With An Assist From George W. Bush

June 12

It is becoming increasingly likely that Iraq has reached a turning point. The forces hostile to the government have grown stronger, better equipped and more organized. And having now secured arms, ammunition and hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from their takeover of Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest city — they will build on these strengths. Inevitably, in Washington, the question has surfaced: Who lost Iraq?

Whenever the United States has asked this question — as it did with China in the 1950s or Vietnam in the 1970s — the most important point to remember is: The local rulers did. The Chinese nationalists and the South Vietnamese government were corrupt, inefficient and weak, unable to be inclusive and unwilling to fight with the dedication of their opponents. The same story is true of Iraq, only much more so. The first answer to the question is: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lost Iraq.

The prime minister and his ruling party have behaved like thugs, excluding the Sunnis from power, using the army, police forces and militias to terrorize their opponents. The insurgency the Maliki government faces today was utterly predictable because, in fact, it happened before. From 2003 onward, Iraq faced a Sunni insurgency that was finally tamped down by Gen. David Petraeus, who said explicitly at the time that the core element of his strategy was political, bringing Sunni tribes and militias into the fold. The surge’s success, he often noted, bought time for a real power-sharing deal in Iraq that would bring the Sunnis into the structure of the government.

A senior official closely involved with Iraq in the Bush administration told me, “Not only did Maliki not try to do broad power-sharing, he reneged on all the deals that had been made, stopped paying the Sunni tribes and militias, and started persecuting key Sunni officials.” Among those targeted were the vice president of Iraq and its finance minister.

But how did Maliki come to be prime minister of Iraq? He was the product of a series of momentous decisions made by the Bush administration. Having invaded Iraq with a small force — what the expertTom Ricks called “the worst war plan in American history” — the administration needed to find local allies. It quickly decided to destroy Iraq’s Sunni ruling establishment and empower the hard-line Shiite religious parties that had opposed Saddam Hussein. This meant that a structure of Sunni power that had been in the area for centuries collapsed. These moves — to disband the army, dismantle the bureaucracy and purge Sunnis in general — might have been more consequential than the invasion itself.

Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria displayed the black flag of the Islamic State and shouted, “Towards Baghdad,” as they drove patrol cars stolen from the Iraqi army. (  / Reuters)

The turmoil in the Middle East is often called a sectarian war. But really it is better described as “the Sunni revolt.” Across the region, from Iraq to Syria, one sees armed Sunni gangs that have decided to take on the non-Sunni forces that, in their view, oppress them. The Bush administration often justified its actions by pointing out that the Shiites are the majority in Iraq and so they had to rule. But the truth is that the borders of these lands are porous, and while the Shiites are numerous in Iraq — Maliki’s party actually won a plurality, not a majority — they are a tiny minority in the Middle East as a whole. It is outside support — from places as varied as Saudi Arabia and Turkey — that sustains the Sunni revolt.

If the Bush administration deserves a fair share of blame for “losing Iraq,” what about the Obama administration and its decision to withdraw American forces from the country by the end of 2011? I would have preferred to see a small American force in Iraq to try to prevent the country’s collapse. But let’s remember why this force is not there. Maliki refused to provide the guarantees that every other country in the world that hosts U.S. forces offers. Some commentators have blamed the Obama administration for negotiating badly or halfheartedly and perhaps this is true. But here’s what a senior Iraqi politician told me in the days when the U.S. withdrawal was being discussed: “It will not happen. Maliki cannot allow American troops to stay on. Iran has made very clear to Maliki that its No. 1 demand is that there be no American troops remaining in Iraq. And Maliki owes them.” He reminded me that Maliki spent 24 years in exile, most of them in Tehran and Damascus, and his party was funded by Iran for most of its existence. And in fact, Maliki’s government has followed policies that have been pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian.

Washington is debating whether airstrikes or training forces would be more effective, but its real problem is much larger and is a decade in the making. In Iraq, it is defending the indefensible.

Read more from Fareed Zakaria’s archive