Inkwell Institute

Middle East Desk

Can you remember why we attacked and occupied Iraq?  Of course, you can……he had WMD….well, that was a LIE…..and finally we went to take out Saddam…the madman of the Euphrates….that we did..,..we caught him….tried him…..and then hung him…….and then we set about neutralizing AQ in Mesopotamia……well that was pretty much a snow job….AQ was NOT a major problem in Iraq, because Saddam did not trust them and was doing all he could to eliminate them until we attacked and his plans went down the crapper…..

And then we set about forcing democracy on a tribal society….you may NOT want to hear that….but pretty much what we did….forced democracy on the country of Iraq…..here is an analysis from Tariq Alhomayed, a very knowledgeable journalist from the Middle East……..

The current Iraqi regime has proven to be worse than Saddam Hussein’s and even more dangerous. Whereas there was a consensus that Saddam’s regime was a dictatorship, the problem today is that the current regime is portrayed as a democracy, yet it is a regime based on abhorrent sectarianism and its exportation.

How can we accept, for example, some of the comments from members of political parties governing Iraq, about what is happening in Syria? Rather than such figures declaring their concern for what is happening to unarmed citizens, and instead of stressing that Syria must be a democracy – as they call it – we find that they are expressing fears that the “Salafis” will gain control in Syria, and of course here they mean the Sunnis. These Iraqis see the arrival of Sunnis to power in Syria as a danger to them, so they say there is no basis to the demands of the Syrian masses, and that what is happening there has external dimensions, in addition to defending the Syrian Baath party. Is this conceivable? Especially as the Iraqi regime talked about how the Arab peoples in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, had rebelled against tyrant regimes, yet today look at what they say about the events in Syria!

In Iraq, after the dissolution of the Baath party and its elimination, and the demobilization of the army because a large part of it was Sunni, it is strange that the new Iraqis today come to the defense of the Syrian Baath party! If this is the logic of the new Iraq, how will the Iraqi regime deal with an essential component of its people, the Sunnis, not to mention the Christians? Is this a democratic Iraq? Is this the kind of democracy that America supports in the region?

The US may have created yet another Iraq that has its fingers in the governance of other countries.  We have created not a democracy but yet another authoritarian regime….not now….but once we leave it will not take long to return to the days of the dictator……and then we need to ask ….will Iraq then be a friend before they are an enemy?  Yet again!

Addendum: A bit of other info has come to my attention since writing this draft…….remember in the days of the “surge” and the statement that we had crippled AQ in Mesopotamia?  That we had all but destroyed AQ’s effectiveness…..that may not be entirely accurate…this from al-Azzaman a newspaper in Iraq……..

Iraq has tightened security measures, particularly in restive areas, to foil attacks by Qaeda following the assassination of its leader Osama Bin Laden by U.S. troops in Pakistan, a senior police source said.

The source, refusing to be named on security grounds, said the measures were the toughest in the provinces where al-Qaeda is still active.

He said more security and military forces were deployed in the Provinces of Anbar and Diyala, still believed to be the group’s strongholds.

Al-Qaeda is reported to be active in the Province of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, and the Province of Salahudeen, of which Tikreet is the capital.

al Qa’eda is making a comeback there, recruiting new fighters and informants, astutely choosing its targets and outsmarting local security forces.

Does not sound like they, AQ, was as crippled as we were lead to believe…..just more inaccurate info coming out of Iraq……so what’s new?