Iraq - Still, In Fact, Going On
- Thread starter padraig (u.s.)
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luka
Well-known member
rather you than me
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Continued from the Corbyn thread:
I think the most fist-bitingly obvious (in retrospect, of course) missed opportunity for good was the failure of the USA and its allies to support the army mutiny/Kurdish-Shi'a uprising in '91. There was a small window where a genuine popular insurgency could have toppled a severely weakened regime, with outside help of course but with Iraqi leadership. God knows, the Ba'athists wouldn't have given up without a damn good fight, there'd have been rivalry and probably fighting between the rebel factions in the power vacuum and it's not like a peaceful, democratic, secular Iraq would have miraculously emerged like a cake from an oven. And Iran, Turkey, Israel and the Saudis would all have had their fingers in it like a shot, naturally. But it would probably have been preferable to another twelve years of Ba'athist brutality, exacerbated by sanctions and propped up by Russian arms sales, and then the invasion, occupation and general aftermath.
Of course, in the event, it suited the allies to have regime humiliated, contained and partially defanged, so as to reduce the risk posed to Israel and the Gulf states, but ultimately left in place and largely intact to provide a bulwark against Iran - a strategy as cynical if not as destructive, in my view, as the eventual invasion.
Lol, you want some chutney and crackers to go with that, cuz?
I think the most fist-bitingly obvious (in retrospect, of course) missed opportunity for good was the failure of the USA and its allies to support the army mutiny/Kurdish-Shi'a uprising in '91. There was a small window where a genuine popular insurgency could have toppled a severely weakened regime, with outside help of course but with Iraqi leadership. God knows, the Ba'athists wouldn't have given up without a damn good fight, there'd have been rivalry and probably fighting between the rebel factions in the power vacuum and it's not like a peaceful, democratic, secular Iraq would have miraculously emerged like a cake from an oven. And Iran, Turkey, Israel and the Saudis would all have had their fingers in it like a shot, naturally. But it would probably have been preferable to another twelve years of Ba'athist brutality, exacerbated by sanctions and propped up by Russian arms sales, and then the invasion, occupation and general aftermath.
Of course, in the event, it suited the allies to have regime humiliated, contained and partially defanged, so as to reduce the risk posed to Israel and the Gulf states, but ultimately left in place and largely intact to provide a bulwark against Iran - a strategy as cynical if not as destructive, in my view, as the eventual invasion.
Lol, you want some chutney and crackers to go with that, cuz?
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
And now ISIS is retaking villages that were until recently under Peshmerga control.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...h-kirkuk-iraqi-kurdish-forces-distracted/amp/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...h-kirkuk-iraqi-kurdish-forces-distracted/amp/
I thought it was PUK with particular fingers pointed at Talabani's son for this, rather than KDP/Bazani who are the one's saying betrayal re: Iran/Iraqi Shi'ite militias. That's what I heard, but who knows?
Fact is Iraqi Kurds are at each others throats at exactly the wrong moment, just like the 90s.
Could be worse than 91 for the Kurds, this.
Fact is Iraqi Kurds are at each others throats at exactly the wrong moment, just like the 90s.
Could be worse than 91 for the Kurds, this.
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