A Geopolitical Analysis: America’s failure in Iraq and the Middle East
Posted on December 17th, 2011
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ By Wick Gankanda Los Angeles, California, USA
December 16, Friday 2011
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The TIME article ‘Iraq: Ten Grim Lessons Learned From the Iraq War’ is a mild discussion of the massive failure of the United States in Iraq and the greater Middle East. It also shows how the worldwide credibility of the U.S. was undermined by the actions of the Americans.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A few points from the Time story, corrected with facts on the ground:
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ * Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not show up at departure ceremony to publicly thank the Americans for “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. You’ll notice that the only ones thanking the U.S. are the Americans!
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ * Yes, Saddam Hussein is gone, but the cost to the Iraq people is unimaginably great: of almost nine years of war, civil strife, terrorism and occupation, millions displaced from their homes, infrastructure destroyed and the country’s social fabric torn apart.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ * The loss of life is staggering: according to http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/Iraq, over a million (1,455,590) Iraqis were killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. These numbers rarely get mentioned by the western media and the west-owned human rights groups.
* Of the 1.5 million American soldiers that cycled through Iraq, 4,487 were killed and tens of thousands left with debilitating physical and psychological scars. And the war has cost the United States some $1 trillion and counting. The human cost the war to families of American soldiers is unimaginable. TIME is off about the monetary cost of the war since the estimate is now about $3 trillion and counting.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ * Ouch! Given the horror and sacrifice, the Iraq forces nurtured by the Americans are unstable due to dangerous ethnic, political and sectarian fault-lines. Iraq after the U.S. invasion is not a strategic U.S. ally in a wider Middle Eastern context and the Iraq’s elected government is closer to Iran than to its ‘big brother’ the U.S.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ * Meanwhile, Iran’s strategic position has been vastly enhanced by the elimination of its most dangerous enemy, Saddam Hussein (who waged a brutal eight-year war against Iran with U.S. and Saudi backing). TIME article left out the facts that the United States supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War as a counterbalance to post-revolutionary Iran and the Soviet Union. That included several billion dollars worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, chemicals, military intelligence, Special Operations training and the direct involvement in warfare against Iran. Google “US helped Saddam Hussein”.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ * Iran’s influence is great enough in Iraq that Iran maintains close political and religious ties with the Shi’ite majority to ensure that the democratically elected government in Baghdad is a friendly – and Shi’ite – one. Plus Tehran has intervened to broker compromises inside Iraq.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ * The article incorrectly states that Arab Spring has also reduced Iranian regional influence. In fact deeper analysis shows that Arab Spring has given rise to Islamic and conservative forces that can be friendlier towards Iran in the future and less likely to bow to U.S. pressure! Just a couple of examples are:
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ * The military government in Egypt that came to power after the Arab Spring there allowing two Iranian warships through the Suez Canal, much to the ire of Americans and the Israelis, and
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ * The U.S./NATO backed war in Libya allowed al-Qaeda to gain power there that could harm U.S. interests in that nation and be sympathetic towards Iran.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The TIME article did not mention anything about the massive human rights abuses as a direct result of the war. There was no mention about the infamous Abu Ghraib prison torture, rape and prisoner abuse. This is very strange since the media and the U.S. are so concerned about human rights abuses in other countries. No mention of war crimes and reconciliation either.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ And the U.S. still haven’t found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq!!!
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ From TIME on the Web at
By Wick Gankanda
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Read this article in Full -PDF format
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items11/2011_12_16_Americas%20failure%20in%20Iraq%20and%20middle%20east.pdf
Los Angeles, California, USA
December 18th, 2011 at 2:11 am
Good article and analysis by Wick. In my view, Americans tried an old fashioned imperialistic grab of Iraqi Oil and land. It did not materialise the way they planned. We have to be alert about threats from imperialists. I also recognise the massive contribution they have made to world development and democracy.