The Iraq war was a disgrace, but sometimes we forget just how much

[BruceVC]

 

The ISIS fighters also consist of alienated powerful Iraqi tribal Sunni's who don't actually want an independent ISIS state but more recognition in the Maliki government

Or in other words, they aren't actually ISIS insurgents however the media simplifies things, but a generalised sunni insurgency. In many cases they're the same secular sunnis who either supported Saddam/ the Ba'ath party right to the end or the tribal groups who fought against al-Qaeda when the US was paying them to and Zarqawi and his successors had peeved them sufficiently. As always, they'll start fighting each other once/ if they actually achieve their military goals because the only thing that unifies them is antagonism to the central Iraqi state and their long term goals are largely antithetical apart from that.

 

Whatever the end result I think Maliki has done an abysmal job in managing the country since the USA pulled out. He has failed to properly incorporate the powerful but small Sunni minority in his new government so I expect to see changes in his policies going forward if he wants to ensure economic and political stability in for Iraq

Stick a fork in Maliki, he's done. He might linger on for a bit as a lame duck because, frankly, who would want his job at this point- but he's lost everyone's confidence outside Iraq and the army's capitulation has destroyed his credibility inside. Will be interesting to see the reaction if Iraq breaks up though, whether it will be a 'travesty', 'against international law' etc etc. Probably yes if it's ISIS doing it, probably not if it's the Kurds- especially now they've taken advantage of the situation to grab their one major outstanding territorial desire, Kirkuk. And associated oil fields.

 

 

 

The ISIS fighters also consist of alienated powerful Iraqi tribal Sunni's who don't actually want an independent ISIS state but more recognition in the Maliki government

Or in other words, they aren't actually ISIS insurgents however the media simplifies things, but a generalised sunni insurgency. In many cases they're the same secular sunnis who either supported Saddam/ the Ba'ath party right to the end or the tribal groups who fought against al-Qaeda when the US was paying them to and Zarqawi and his successors had peeved them sufficiently. As always, they'll start fighting each other once/ if they actually achieve their military goals because the only thing that unifies them is antagonism to the central Iraqi state and their long term goals are largely antithetical apart from that.

 

Whatever the end result I think Maliki has done an abysmal job in managing the country since the USA pulled out. He has failed to properly incorporate the powerful but small Sunni minority in his new government so I expect to see changes in his policies going forward if he wants to ensure economic and political stability in for Iraq

Stick a fork in Maliki, he's done. He might linger on for a bit as a lame duck because, frankly, who would want his job at this point- but he's lost everyone's confidence outside Iraq and the army's capitulation has destroyed his credibility inside. Will be interesting to see the reaction if Iraq breaks up though, whether it will be a 'travesty', 'against international law' etc etc. Probably yes if it's ISIS doing it, probably not if it's the Kurds- especially now they've taken advantage of the situation to grab their one major outstanding territorial desire, Kirkuk. And associated oil fields.

 

 

I agree with most of what you are saying. But within the ranks of ISIS there are elements of a more fundamentalist Sunni element that do want an independent ISIS state within Syria and Iraq. They are primarily  foreign fighters. I find it very hard to imagine Iraq breaking up, this is not what Iran wants and I have come to the realization that we shouldn't underestimate the influence of Iran in the region.

 

Also on a personal level I'm not sure if this would be the best thing for Iraq despite the sectarian violence?

[Zoraptor]

All of ISIS want an independent state in Iraq and Greater Syria- that's their name, that's their entire raison d'etre. They simply don't recognise borders, to them they're meaningless. It's the other more moderate sunni groups that don't want that or have a different interpretation of things. ISIS fundamentally believes in the Caliphate, and Iraq and Al Sham (Greater Syria) were absolutely integral contiguous parts of that. The Ba'athists and tribal sunnis just basically loathe al-Maliki. But Maliki could have been the Iraqi Mandela and ISIS would still hate him.

[213374U]

Okay. Now anything can happen.

 

u wot m8?

[Nonek]

How long has it been since we made Iraq?

 

I-Rack, for the busy intelligence agent on the go. No time for torture? Waterboarding a washout? Try the new I-Rack portable torture device, with voices such as Bieber, Gaga and various talent show freaks, your victim will break in mere minutes. Brought to you by Torquemada industries, where there's a will, there's a wail.

[Orogun01]

How long has it been since we made Iraq?

 

I-Rack, for the busy intelligence agent on the go. No time for torture? Waterboarding a washout? Try the new I-Rack portable torture device, with voices such as Bieber, Gaga and various talent show freaks, your victim will break in mere minutes. Brought to you by Torquemada industries, where there's a will, there's a wail.

And for our next product I-Ran.

Love that skit.

[Gromnir]

How long has it been since we made Iraq?

 

I-Rack, for the busy intelligence agent on the go. No time for torture? Waterboarding a washout? Try the new I-Rack portable torture device, with voices such as Bieber, Gaga and various talent show freaks, your victim will break in mere minutes. Brought to you by Torquemada industries, where there's a will, there's a wail.

 

for shame, given your background you is no doubt aware that IRAC predates silly iraq by some considerable amount. many a naive university graduate with decent grades but nothing better to do with their lives has fallen into the trap o' law school and thus found themselves living the seeming perpetual nightmare o' IRAC: issue, rule, application/analysis, conclusion. everything becomes irac. pizza doesn't arrive in thirty minutes-or-less, and you think in terms o irac. that new detergent turned your boxers something other than a "whiter shade o' pale" and you reflect 'pon irac. is a sickness passed on to subsequent generations o' otherwise bright kids who didn't have the MCATs to get into a decent med school. 

 

oddly enough, there is a variation called KUWAIT: konclusion, utility, wording, answer, initiation, thoughts. the basis o' a conspiracy perhaps? 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Rostere]

 

Okay. Now anything can happen.

 

u wot m8?

 

I'd like to iterate that I generally believe people are better off together. Just like I generally believe that people are better off with all their body parts left intact at their bodies, at their appropriate places. But there are instances where medical amputation is advisable, because of illnesses that are impossible to cure with what you have at hand, plus the current condition might be life-threatening.

 

Crimea has a longer history of being Russian (than being Ukrainian), and a large majority of Russian inhabitants. The connection to Ukraine is rather dubious (except through proximity - it's a Falklands situation). As such, if the question must be reduced to a binary choice, I believe Crimea is a more natural part of Russia. That said, I reject any violence used to achieve that goal. The Donetsk and Luhansk situation is entirely different - throughout history, the area has been populated with a majority of Ukrainians and a lot of the Russians living there can be traced to immigration of industrial workers under Soviet rule. The current secessionist movement there does not have any obvious demographic and historical legitimacy. Furthermore, the fact that they are under the influence of an autocrat such as Putin does not make the situation better.

 

The Iraq situation differs from both Crimea and Donbass. The invention of "Iraq" as a political entity started with the independence from the British Empire in 1947. Although there had been an Ottoman province by the same name, it had not covered the same area as British, that is, our current Iraq. Basically, during the (early, at least) Ottoman era, Iraq was divided into four parts - Iraq (Shia parts today), Kurdistan (obviously Iraqi Kurdistan today, although parts of Kurdistan stayed in what was to be Turkey), al-Jazira (the non-Kurd Sunni areas north of the Euphrates) and al-Sham (in Europe is known as Syria - included from Iraq the Sunni areas south of the Euphrates, in addition to all the areas which today form Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel + occupied Palestine). So in the Iraqi case, a partition would just be returning to the situation before imperialism ****ed it up. If Kurds, Sunnis and Shias (and Turkmens, and Yazidis, and...) could just magically make up and do this together I believe they would be better off. For a partition to be justified, we must be absolutely sure the alternative is unworkable. You might wonder how the (Sunni) ISIS could occupy the non-Kurd Sunni parts of Iraq so quickly. You might have noticed the tensions between Maliki and the Kurdish-controlled Iraqi north. Currently, the big boys are still talking as if Iraq is going to stay together. But if the situation of sectarian tensions continues to deteriorate, like it has done now with few exceptions since 2003, we must partition Iraq to save it from genocidal civil war.

[213374U]

Well, generally people are better off together, except when they aren't. No doubt there are advantages to having close ties with neighboring tribes/ethnic/religious groups, but ultimately I believe humanity hasn't yet sufficiently progressed past the tribal mentality to indefinitely enable cohabitation under a common legal framework that will in fact (and not only on paper) guarantee equality, justice, and respect for minorities.

 

And since you brought it up, the Ukrainian historical claim to the Donbas, as presented, is born out of a mixture of historiographical factors, 20th-century nationalism and half-truths, and doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Facts, unsurprisingly, are more difficult to fit into a single, clear cut interpretation. From my understanding, from the modern era, the eastern part of the Wild Fields was a frontier land sparsely populated by Cossacks (Zaporozhian and Don mostly, but also others), while Russian lands proper were more to the northeast (Grand Duchy of Moscow) and Ruthenians were to the west, in the Kievan Voivodeship which was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, until Catherine incorporated the area into the Russian Empire in the late 18th century, alongside Crimea. The Donbas was an ethnically diverse area with a population that increased quickly, as you noted, due to immigration, and the development of the coal-steel industry in the region, but this process began well before the Soviet era (now-Ukrainian Donbas pop in 1897 was <700k, and it had grown to ~2M by 1920). The current ethnic composition of the region is a result of Russian Empire- and Soviet-era migration which in turn is a consequence of a myriad factors such as the unique relationship of the Cossack communities with their neighbors, the Catholic/Eastern religious schism, the revolution of 1917 and the development of heavy industry in "the Russian Ruhr". Russians have as much of a claim on the Donbas as Ukrainians, if we are using history to determine the legitimacy of territorial claims, which is another can of worms.

 

In addition, Putin's support or his status as an autocrat (an exaggeration btw, cf. Teodoro Obiang, King Abdullah, Islam Karimov, etc; "our bastards") are completely irrelevant to the legitimacy of the claim of either side—it may well affect the outcome, but not the validity of the claim itself, which is a legal, social, and ultimately academic issue.

 

Not that it matters, at any rate. My reply was more aimed at highlighting the ever-present double standards with regards to certain "fundamental principles"—in this case, self-determination—in world politics, which in my mind, is one of the biggest obstacles to peace and a working international legal framework. I'm not against the dissolution of an artificial post-colonial Middle-eastern state that has been kept together only by means of brutal oppression and mass murder into its constituent nation-states.

Edited June 21, 2014 by 213374U

[Walsingham]

I suppose you chaps noticed that ISIS's great Caliphate covers the whole of India?

 

So naturally we should just let them crack on. I'm sure they'll be happy once they have everything from Morocco to Indonesia.

[BruceVC]

I suppose you chaps noticed that ISIS's great Caliphate covers the whole of India?

 

So naturally we should just let them crack on. I'm sure they'll be happy once they have everything from Morocco to Indonesia.

 

I find the objective of ISIS almost completely fanciful, maybe they got inspired by the developments in Crimea but there is absolutely no way they will ever be allowed to create an independent state in the region. I wonder if there leaders actually believe they can do this or do you think these types of campaigns are  more about fund raising and gaining new volunteers for there cause?

[Walsingham]

 

I suppose you chaps noticed that ISIS's great Caliphate covers the whole of India?

 

So naturally we should just let them crack on. I'm sure they'll be happy once they have everything from Morocco to Indonesia.

 

I find the objective of ISIS almost completely fanciful, maybe they got inspired by the developments in Crimea but there is absolutely no way they will ever be allowed to create an independent state in the region. I wonder if there leaders actually believe they can do this or do you think these types of campaigns are  more about fund raising and gaining new volunteers for there cause?

 

 

Allowed by whom? The only people who can effectively stop them are the people in the way. Because the great British public just cannot be bothered.

[BruceVC]

 

 

I suppose you chaps noticed that ISIS's great Caliphate covers the whole of India?

 

So naturally we should just let them crack on. I'm sure they'll be happy once they have everything from Morocco to Indonesia.

 

I find the objective of ISIS almost completely fanciful, maybe they got inspired by the developments in Crimea but there is absolutely no way they will ever be allowed to create an independent state in the region. I wonder if there leaders actually believe they can do this or do you think these types of campaigns are  more about fund raising and gaining new volunteers for there cause?

 

 

Allowed by whom? The only people who can effectively stop them are the people in the way. Because the great British public just cannot be bothered.

 

 

Well there is a long list of people who won't  allow them to create an independent state in the region, these include Syria\Iran, Iraq\Iran and  most Western countries correctly see the creation of an ISIS state as a destabilizing factor for the entire region

[Zoraptor]

Allowed by whom? The only people who can effectively stop them are the people in the way. Because the great British public just cannot be bothered.

 

 

The great British public should not be bothered. British interference is one of the factors which has left Iraq a mess, at some point you just have to stop and let them sort things out themselves. 1918 would have been good.

 

They don't have any chance of achieving their Caliphatic dreams in any case, they can aim for the moon but it doesn't mean that the little green men should be worried. As soon as they try inflicting their vision on the gulf states- which they'd have to, can't have a caliphate without Mecca and Medina- their funding will dry up instantly; they lack sufficient support and have only achieved anything in areas where the existing public authorities are already massively compromised by other factors. Their narrative has a certain cachet in being similar to that of the actual Caliphate- bands of committed men fired by religious fervour sweeping out of the desert to supplant the decadent [Roman and Persian] Empires, against all odds. But it's not a good actual parallel in reality, it's just a recruiting tool. They don't have a Khalid ibn al Walid and they don't have two empires that have fought themselves to the brink of bankruptcy and implosion in the decades previous. They may be aiming for a Caliphate but the best they can achieve is a (localised) Timur. Anything concrete they achieve will fall apart at the first sign of weakness.

 

Syria would crush ISIS, if they weren't also fighting a bunch of other groups. Iraq would crush ISIS, if they weren't also fighting tribals and ba'athists. And as Syria shows, ISIS are allies of convenience to other groups, they'll naturally end up fighting their allies as well at some point. The only thing which can convert ISIS into a long term threat is something like couping Saudi Arabia.

[AGX-17]

So, Iraq is a zambambo courtesy of Bush. Thanks for taking me back to my highschool years, which I wish I'd forgotten; guilty pleasure: 9/11 coverage at the time. Let's just let Iran have Iraq and call it a day. I mean, honestly. Really. At least we don't have the big R calling the Taliban heroes of justice anymore, right? Although everyone should be reminded that Mr. R called them heroes of justice, more or less.

 

Secondary guilty pleasure: Space shuttle Columbia turning into a bunch of artificial meteorites. How's about we make a real space program, 'murica? No? OK, private sector, save us from the Beltway. Any day now. You guys sure pay a lot of lobbyists to prove your mettle, so how about mettling that proving?

Edited June 23, 2014 by AGX-17

[Walsingham]

Do go on, Zoraptor. Nothing entertains and enthralls me more than seeing people trace a line of causation back as far as the last Evil Western intervention somewhere. 

 

Because the problem with Iraq has nothing to do with ancient religious schisms, issues with the Arabic approach to civil society, or the toxic influence of a neo-fascist philosophy intent on a half baked global moral revolution. Or even just a buttload of firearms. It's down to Sykes-Picot.

[BruceVC]

Do go on, Zoraptor. Nothing entertains and enthralls me more than seeing people trace a line of causation back as far as the last Evil Western intervention somewhere. 

 

Because the problem with Iraq has nothing to do with ancient religious schisms, issues with the Arabic approach to civil society, or the toxic influence of a neo-fascist philosophy intent on a half baked global moral revolution. Or even just a buttload of firearms. It's down to Sykes-Picot.

 

I agree, I can accept that there are some cases of historical bad planning by Western countries in some places in the world but I long for the day where people stop blaming "colonialism and Western intervention" for the state of there countries when in fact the main culprit for many dysfunctional countries is corruption and lack of good governance

 

[HoonDing]

Someone tell them to conquer Qatar so the World Cup won't take place there.

[Malcador]

10 years is too long to bring up an invasion, after all.

[BruceVC]

10 years is too long to bring up an invasion, after all.

 

It is if you don't take responsibility for managing your own government 3 years after the invading force pulled out. Maliki was advised what he needed to do, it wasn't complicated.... " integrate the Sunni minority into your new government ". But he failed to do this, can't blame the invading force for that.

[Junai]

Or even just a buttload of firearms. oil

 

Fixed.

[Walsingham]

 

Or even just a buttload of firearms. oil

 

Fixed.

 

 

Ah yes, my second favourite half-assed geopolitics shortcut.

[Malcador]

It is if you don't take responsibility for managing your own government 3 years after the invading force pulled out. Maliki was advised what he needed to do, it wasn't complicated.... " integrate the Sunni minority into your new government ". But he failed to do this, can't blame the invading force for that.

Not really, though, the invading force did break the old regime, cause a fair amount of chaos. So it is somewhat a contributing factor to some of this, amongst others.

[Zoraptor]

Because the problem with Iraq has nothing to do with ancient religious schisms, issues with the Arabic approach to civil society, or the toxic influence of a neo-fascist philosophy intent on a half baked global moral revolution. Or even just a buttload of firearms. It's down to Sykes-Picot.

...

 

roflcopters. Yes, the people who bundled various brown chappies into arbitrary constructions without any care for those 'ancient [ethno]religious schisms' have nothing to do with the latter disintegration of said countries along those ancient ethnoreligious lines! Nothing at all! It's coincidence, a Russo Iranian conspiracy, anything but our fault! Aliens! Orcs! Illuminati! Conjunction of the Spheres! Mars in the quarter of Pleiades! Anything!

 

You know what the problem with Sykes Picot was? It didn't take into account any of those ancient ethno religious schisms. You know what the problem with the colonial administrations were? They weren't concerned with an 'approach to civil society', they were concerned with colonial convenience. You know what the problem with post colonial policy was? Support for convenient 'reliable' strongmen favouring one ethnoreligious group over 'civil society'. You know what the current problem is, at least in part? Support for the 'toxic philosophies' when convenient. That's not to say that those are the only reasons for the current mess, but trying to airbrush them as factors is at very best naive.

 

The west does not understand the middle east. Never has, and all indications are it never will.

Edited June 23, 2014 by Zoraptor

[BruceVC]

 

Because the problem with Iraq has nothing to do with ancient religious schisms, issues with the Arabic approach to civil society, or the toxic influence of a neo-fascist philosophy intent on a half baked global moral revolution. Or even just a buttload of firearms. It's down to Sykes-Picot.

...

 

 

 

The west does not understand the middle east. Never has, and all indications are it never will.

 

I think the more salient points is does the middle east understand the middle east?

[Meshugger]

 

Because the problem with Iraq has nothing to do with ancient religious schisms, issues with the Arabic approach to civil society, or the toxic influence of a neo-fascist philosophy intent on a half baked global moral revolution. Or even just a buttload of firearms. It's down to Sykes-Picot.

...

 

roflcopters. Yes, the people who bundled various brown chappies into arbitrary constructions without any care for those 'ancient [ethno]religious schisms' have nothing to do with the latter disintegration of said countries along those ancient ethnoreligious lines! Nothing at all! It's coincidence, a Russo Iranian conspiracy, anything but our fault! Aliens! Orcs! Illuminati! Conjunction of the Spheres! Mars in the quarter of Pleiades! Anything!

 

You know what the problem with Sykes Picot was? It didn't take into account any of those ancient ethno religious schisms. You know what the problem with the colonial administrations were? They weren't concerned with an 'approach to civil society', they were concerned with colonial convenience. You know what the problem with post colonial policy was? Support for convenient 'reliable' strongmen favouring one ethnoreligious group over 'civil society'. You know what the current problem is, at least in part? Support for the 'toxic philosophies' when convenient. That's not to say that those are the only reasons for the current mess, but trying to airbrush them as factors is at very best naive.

 

The west does not understand the middle east. Never has, and all indications are it never will.

 

 

As soon as the rest of the world achieves total energy independence from oil and can create non-carbon based plastics, it will leave them alone. Until then, just enjoy the show.