What are OUR Interests in Iraq?
Has anyone stopped to ask or define?
Is it that we are still following the 'Powell Doctrine': "you break it, you own it."
Or is it that our own stubbornness to admit defeat, that will descend us into yet another ill-conceived 'misadventure' -- with yet another unmet-price-tag, in terms of 'blood and treasure' -- (that those in Congress will simply ignore)?
US: Iraqi Insurgency Threatens American Interests
by Lara Jakes, AP National Security Writer, London; abcnews.go.com -- June 13, 2014
The U.S. is contemplating military action in Iraq to quell the fast-moving insurgency because it has spent years investing in Iraq's future, Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.
Kerry said the Sunni insurgency, which has swept to control of several cities in Iraq's west and north, is also plotting against American and Western interests.
[...]
Kerry said a decision would be made soon.
"Iraq is a country we've had a very direct relationship with, very direct investment and engagement with, not to mention the lives of our soldiers who were lost there, providing this opportunity to them," Kerry told reporters at the end of a conference in London on combating sexual violence in conflict zones. "And I don't think anybody in the region, or in this administration, believes it is in the interest of the United States to turn our backs on that."
[...]
What are these "American and Western interests"?
Is it the principle of 'more and better' "Freedom?" Is it the simple pragmatism of 'more and cheaper' Oil?
Or is it we 'care about' the country we rousted, disrupted, and eventually left -- broken and unfixed?
Wait a second, didn't the Iraq Government want us to leave?
Why did Romney react so harshly to news of Iraqi withdrawal?
by Jay Bookman, ajc.com -- October 25, 2011
[...]
Upon taking office, President Obama and his team confronted that same resistance in attempting to extend the withdrawal deadline. And as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made clear over the weekend, that wasn’t going to change:
“When the Americans asked for immunity, the Iraqi side answered that it was not possible. The discussions over the number of trainers and the place of training stopped. Now that the issue of immunity was decided and that no immunity to be given, the withdrawal has started.”
Given Iraq’s intransigence on that critical issue, what alternative course would a President Romney have taken? Would he have surrendered to Iraqi demands and exposed our troops to Iraqi law, which under Iraq’s constitution is based on Islamic law? [...]
Or would President Romney simply keep our troops in Iraq without permission of the Iraqi government? That would have been quite an ending to a war ostensibly fought for Iraqi freedom, and in fact labeled “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” The irony would have been compounded by the fact that we would be in defiance of international law, the very charge we used against Saddam Hussein to justify our invasion. We would reveal ourselves to be conquerors, not liberators, just as our worst critics claimed.
[...]
"Liberators" of who, what, and why?
"Liberators" from what? "Liberators" of what? And at what 'enduring' cost?
What are our Interests in Iraq?
Has anyone stopped to ask or define?
Well, the following writer has, with the sober pragmatism of a Geo-political tactician ...
Iraq: The Mistake was Staying
by Harvey Sapolsky, fletcherforum.org -- March 18, 2013
[...]
The invasion of Iraq was necessary not because Saddam was behind the 9/11 attacks on the United States. He wasn’t. Nor was it necessary because many (understandably) believed in 2003 that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. And it was certainly not necessary so that the U.S. could convert the Middle East to democracy, with Iraq becoming the leading example.
Instead, the necessary reason was the need for the U.S. to leave Saudi Arabia, the home of the two holiest sites of Sunni Islam. In 2003, the U.S. had over 10,000 troops in Saudi Arabia, mostly airmen, protecting the world’s prime oil supplier from Saddam Hussein, who had threatened the country continuously since his invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Al Qaeda largely justified its attack on the U.S. to the Muslim world by the American presence in Saudi Arabia.
Although the United States would seek al-Qaeda’s utter destruction through military action, leaving Saudi Arabia was a necessary action to rid the U.S. of the threat from Al Qaeda, and the road out of Saudi Arabia led through Baghdad. Why? Because Saudi Arabia would never be safe with Saddam in power. With Saddam deposed, and the Iraqi threat to Riyadh’s territorial integrity removed, the U.S. left Saudi Arabia in August 2003.
[...]
SO, it kind of sounds like {Saudi} "Mission Accomplished" to me.
So, WHAT are our 'ongoing and enduring' interests in Iraq? And at what 'ongoing and enduring' cost?
And exactly WHEN will be able to declare to the world once-again "Mission Accomplished"?
What are the objective milestones for the next sweeping "Declaration"?