Note: due to some well timed bitching by people who have very odd names I have added another post entitled "Why it's a waste of time to help the Arab 'Moderates'". And for the record Semperfelipe: It's dumbass, not dummass. Just thought you should know. You dumbass.
Everybody has gone to full shriek mode about the Iraqi Al Qaeda group called ISIS rolling up Anbar province like a Persian rug. I think Americans need to step back, take a deep breath and look at that region through history's eyes rather than our partisan and very short term lenses. My credentials for opining on this are that I grew up in the middle east and Islamic southeast Asia and have owned businesses in the UAE, travelling there frequently in recent years. In addition, my friends and family consider me to be 'an opinionated SOB'. So to sustain and extend my reputation, I submit the following things I think I know:
1. The ISIS Al Qaeda conquest of Anbar province in Iraq does not mean that Al Qaeda will conquer all of Iraq. Anbar is the Sunni heartland and Al Qaeda is the Sunni 'champion'. The Iraqi government forces ran because their Sunni compatriots turned their coats and therefore there was no coherent force to contend with ISIS (and headless is such an extreme fashion statement). Kurdistan has its own army composed of Kurds (and for all I know, whey). It will not allow ISIS north, indeed it moved to occupy Kirkuk - the Kurdish commercial capital - to forestall just that eventuality. Shia Iraq, centered around Baghdad and Basra is also not going to fold in the face of Sunni extremism. The same soldiers and policemen that hoofed it in Anbar will fight for their homes and families further east. And since there is no such thing as an effective, professional Arab military anywhere (the Israelis and perhaps the Turks have the only forces in the region capable of kicking any ass at all) the result is likely to be bloody stalemate - saddamy without the Saddam so to speak.
2. It now seems like a rather fundamental mistake not to have split Iraq into three autonomous republics under a loose central structure. Failing to do so guaranteed Shia dominance and Sunni rage (the Kurds have their own deal and were never foolish enough to let the Arabs get a foothold in the north). Instead of a credible, native Sunni government the Sunni heartland was ruled by illegitimate Shia apparatchiks and their Sunni stooges - Arab Larry, Moe and Curlys that the jihacrazies easily flicked aside. Iraq is not, never was nor will it ever be a country. It's a damp spot on a map that filled the empty space between Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia in 1920. Thus nothing has really been 'lost' other than the liberty (and the heads) of the Sunnis in Anbar and the nation building fantasies of certain US politicos.
3. Keeping US troops in Iraq could have helped in this specific situation but it is unlikely to solve the real issue: the ongoing Islamic wars of reformation. There is a multi-dimensional war that has been percolating underground for decades and has now broken out into the open in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Libya among others. The contending parties are confused and the state of play is chaotic - there are radical Sunnis, nutjob Shia, Iranians, Oil satrapies, moderate Muslims, secularists, Alawites, Berbers, Druze, Copts, real estate developers and in the wings, Israel and Turkey. All of these groups are fighting over what it means to be Muslim and Arab in the 21st century, with each major religious grouping (Sunni, Shiite, Developer) seeking to impose its will on the others and the other groups trying to carve out a space for their country, belief system, economic interest or shopping mall. It is truly a war of all against all and like the Christian wars of reformation it will be bloody, episodic (most places won't have hot war most of the time) long and won't end until everyone decides that imposing their vision of Allah's will on everyone else just isn't that important after all and besides the other guys lost even if they won't admit it.
In the meantime, all that the US and its allies can do is try to minimize the war's impact on the outside world by quarantining weapons of mass destruction and keeping the oil spigots open. The good news is that war takes a lot of money so all sides have an incentive to produce as much oil and gas as possible. The biggest mistake we could make would be to get in the middle of this family food fight (particularly because it's being fought with rocket propelled grenades and automatic rifles) rather than policing the ring.* Our real mistake thus far has been not dealing more aggressively with Iran's nuclear program because the one thing that could cause this situation to get completely out of hand is a Shia bomb which would then be matched (via a handsome multi billion dollar bribe) by a Pakistani sourced Sunni bomb with all sides far too obsessed with apocalyptic visions and doe eyed virgins to think clearly.
Obama I's failure to rubbleize the Iranian nuclear program and Hellfire its top officials may turn out to be his biggest screwup. You have to go back to Aethelred the Unready to find anyone less prepared to serve as Commander in Chief than our adjunct law lecturer in chief. Foreign policy is the one and only area where "Jackass" John McCain could have done a better job.
*This does not mean that we should eschew the occasional rubblization or Hellfiring to remind the Jihadi faithful who is really upstairs that their bowing down to - although when you lay your prayer mats out guys you need to remember that The Great Pentagon is further to the north and east. And contributing lots of free defective grenades and mines with dodgy safety settings to the Jihad probably can't hurt either. The key thing is to remember that in most cases trying to help the so called moderates right now is a fool's errand. Because until the crazies burn the crazy out of themselves and their country they're just going to keep coming back with their stupid hanky covered faces and silly scimitars. This is a fever - a raging religious infection and the infectious agents need to be killed and since we're tired and bored of the whole thing we'd prefer that the 'Killer J Cells' kill the other 'Killer J Cells'.
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