It looks like President Bush will announce a "temporary increase" in the number of US troops serving in Iraq. The President adds complexity to a series of wrong decisions he has made since the start of the attacks. It is hard to imagine how an American military explosion could solve a built-in problem?
We made the same mistake as the five-star General Douglas MacArthur warned against Asia, "Never take part in the civil war in Asia." President Kennedy and Johnson did not heed the advice, and some of it is historic. Now again, we have a President who has volunteered (the US has never been directly or indirectly attacked by the evil Saddam Hussein) in a civil war in the Arab world where suicide bombings are as common as a cup of coffee.
The basis of General MacArthur's advice was that life was cheap in Asia. Our country will be exhausted, and society will continue to struggle to slow down before the opposition parties lose their lives. The same principle applies to the Middle East, as it was in Asia. Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and Mullah's Iran lost a few hundred thousand men in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and no one has ever felt the loss. The United States openly supported Saddam Hussein during the war, and blocked Iran's victory by launching a clever weapon.
Our President on the other hand continues to receive the worst advice from the same people who started this effort. Let's look at history to understand what happened. Saddam Hussein was a dictator like any other dictator in that part of the world. Goggle “Massacre”, and you will see how the Syrian leadership killed tens of thousands of their people in 1982. When Mullah took Iran and removed the Shah, perhaps a few hundred thousand people died as a result.
The history of the entire region is full of violence, instability, chaos, and uncertainty. In that simple sentence, you will understand why our President's desire to bring democracy to Iraq will not work. All Middle Eastern countries have a fragile democracy whose members are more tolerant, and more flexible by nature. Even if our President succeeds in setting our democratic values for the people of Iraq, the whole system will have to disintegrate in a matter of months to a year or two, as new alliances will be formed between the warring parties.
This is not George Bush's fault. He simply allowed himself to be misled by the reality of everyday life in Iraq. His advisers are failing miserably, and America has failed to change its advisers immediately to understand what it is all about.
The main goal of all American Presidents and not Congress is to decide for our country what our interests should be. The President must make a policy that will advance our interests. It is no coincidence that the first invasion of Iraq in 1990 took place shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Our Middle East policy up to that time was to prevent Soviet invasion, as well as to control the OIL RICH Middle East.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, our policy became to PROTECT any country in the region from building a monarchy in the region (the reason being OIL). This was Saddam's SIN. He tried to control the region's oil resources by invading Kuwait, thus keeping Saudi Arabia neutral. This should have been avoided at all costs. In 1990, the cost became a US-led coalition to remove Saddam as a threat to oil stability in the region, which is why former President Bush has never marched in Baghdad. Saddam's removal from Kuwait was enough to ensure that hegemony would not be created.
Somehow, the current President Bush kept in his mind that Saddam was a threat to the stability of the region, so he attacked again. To do this, open the Pandora Box. Once that box is opened, no one can predict with certainty how this will play out. We've done a lot of things, and none of them play with us:
1) We have strengthened and strengthened Iran. We are no longer in a position to threaten Iran's invasion by continuing its nuclear program. We do not have a strong framework to support our threats.
2) We have strengthened Syria in the same way as Iran.
3) We have exacerbated the situation of the Arab-Israeli state by weakening our image as a loyal third party in the conflict.
4) Establish Iraq as a country, and as a functioning, non-permanent state.
5) We have put our dignity on the line, and we have a low level of respect in the eyes of our comrades since World War II.
6) Our position as the guiding force of this planet is in jeopardy.
7) We have started a war that we do not know how it will end.
All the President has to do now is seen anywhere we stand. That is why he was defeated by the ANC in the last election. The American people have never sat down, or watched anything. We are an active nation. If the President does not move enough, people will vote for others?
Our current troops should be used only to train Iraqi soldiers, police and soldiers, not to act as soldiers in a country whose government has already defeated them. If the President sees the need to send more troops, these extra troops should be used only to train Iraqi troops, not to intervene. This is not a Civil War, in which Muslims fight Muslims, and oppose sects. This is not about Catholics against Protestants, or Jews against Arabs. All of this is happening in one religion. It happens even in the same groups. The Sunnis also killed the Sunnis, and the Shiites killed the Shiites. We had no hope that we would ever get involved in such senseless murder.
After all, we are a democracy, a beacon of light in a world of total darkness. Our ongoing efforts in Iraq could weaken the country so much that it could cause Iran's nuclear power to form a regional empire that has tried to prevent Iraq from creating it. Would that not be a sad situation? We change each animal.
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