Mongols back in Baghdad, some things never changeI was a young lad when the Coalition of the Willing invaded Iraq and it's most likely I'll be an old man when they finally leave. Can we look at Iraq before Saddam and the general direction it's perceived to be heading into now?
The Age of Saddam: Saddam was a jerk. He truly was. His Iraq-Iran War which he launched killed over a 1 million people and just strengthed Iran's theocracy. His use of poison gas against the Kurds who had a right to rebel in my view was atrocious, not even Hitler used poison gas. Not to mention his destructive invasion of Kuwait. Even after he was beaten in a matter of days during the Gulf War he let loose pent-up rage and killed thousands of Kurds and Shia. He wasn't the biggest mass-murderer in history but especially in a region like the Middle East, he was a nuisance for American Hegemonic progress.
Mind you, I didn't support the Iraq War but if he was left alone to this day... do you really believe he would not want to have his own terror organizations like how Iran has Hezbollah and Hamas tied to its waist. The entire region would've gotten worse after 9/11 with Saddam there regardless whether he was running Iraq or not. The thing is with Saddam gone, an enemy who really hates the US took its place.
Post-Saddam: More than 600,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion of Iraq and the declaration of the end of hostilities. Arab Sunnis fearing a loss of power began an earnest insurgency with Al-Qaeda and it's foreign fighters blowing themselves up with gusto. America hasn't fought a counter-insurgency war since the war in Vietnam and even then it lost because its' forces were more equipped to fight the USSR in Central Europe rather than Viet Cong in South East Asia. Same thought process here. Even after more than 10 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union the US armed forces was not ready for irregular warfare. An Empire hasn't been so humiliated by villagers with weapons since the Boer War. Even then, the Boers didn't use IED's, Chlorine gas bombs and liquid copper bombs to shred American mechanized infantry vehicles.
A Short Blurb -A History of Violence:Iraqi Style
This goes without saying Iraq isn't a peaceful place. Ancient Sumerians were the first to be urbanized and as such the first to face death by organized armies. Sargon of Akkad pretty much decimated the Sumerians in turn. The Akkadians were in turn wrecked by the Assyrian War Machine which was fast, mobile adaptive and gifted with sieges. Alexander the Great had his fun fighting the Persians there too. The Romans were routed when trying to fight the Persians, malaria and imcompetance. The Islamic Arabs who at the same time crushed the Byzantines and the Persians had their share of Iraq of course - after all Iraqis speak Arabic today. Then the Mongols under Hulagu came and spoilt the Islamic Jihad party. They completely, thoroughly, carthartically destroyed Baghdad. They rolled up the Abbasid Caliph in a carpet and let their ponies crush him to death. Pyramids of skulls and everything. All 800,000 Baghdad residents were put to the sword, that was the high-point of Iraqi culture too. The Ottomans, my favourite variety of Turks had to take over Iraq. Then the Brits, the most ruthless Empire builders since Rome invaded Iraq and trudged all the way up the Tigris and Euphrates battling Turks and Arabs along the way. Finally, their Anglo brethren the Americans decided to do the same using motorized vehicles instead of Hindu porters and horses. After all this slaughter, I really do feel bad for the average Iraqi.
Millions of Iraqis fled their country. The Christian community of Iraq pretty much has died out after Muslim attacks on them. Though Saddam was captured, this didn't stop the Shia from forming a Mahdi Army (if you know the story of Sudan, this may sound familiar) and the Kurds from declaring a pseudo-state Iraqi Kurdistan and boxing themselves off. Goat meat and all.
The Sunnis are the troublesome part. Their stands at Fallujah and Mosul were set-piece battle in the post-Soviet world. Zarqawi was a dangerous bastard who even Bin Laden had to tell him to stop. His cause of creating a Civil War between Shia and Sunni by far killed most Iraqis. Holes in the ground with bodies showing power drill marks into knee caps and skulls just show the brutality of the insurgency. Iraqi tribes waged war against each other. It seemed like Iraq was doomed.
Then in 2007, that living cancer John McCain urged the Surge. Guess what? It worked. Baghdad was retaken and so was Anbar province with the help of the Sunni Awakening. Soon Sunni tribes were on the American payroll to kill foreign fighters. Even the Iraqi Parliament is somewhat functioning!
Despite all this 'success' it's not as good as the job the Americans did in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. The true winner of this war was Iran. Iran has a Shia Hegemony stretching from Gaza to Afghanistan. Iran is closer to getting enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. It's elected leader vents against Israel. It's Ayatollah controls all media. It aids and funds Hamas and Hezbollah who defeated Israel (a Nation-State mind you) in the 2006 Summer War. This is bad.
When Americans finally leave in 2011 they will have to ask themselves was 4000 dead troops worth it? Was Iranian control of the Middle East worth the cost of removing Saddam? Is the fall of American prestige in the World worth Iraq? Is it worth it?
No.
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