by Sandy » Sat Jun 14, 2014 8:01 am
Knowing history is quite important, and Americans are woefully ignorant when it comes to the Middle East. These problems go back to Byzantium, the Caliphates, the Crusades and they've been aggravated over time by European economic interests related to trade, rivalries between monarchies, the expansionist imperialism of the British, Germans and Russians, and in modern times, oil. The lines on the ground that are borders in the area now were pretty much drawn in by the British when they became the dominant power in the region after World War I. They represent the best way to protect British interests. Then there is the added difficulty posed by the insertion of a Jewish state after WW2, which the British resisted mightily because it would interfere with their interests, and which, pushed by the US, changed the economic dominance of the area. Some of US policy has been affected by the influences of dispensational premillenialism as it relates to Israel, though the Israeli state doesn't meet the prophetic descriptions.
The inequities of wealth, the competing interests within the Muslim faith, ancient racial hatred, all contribute to a mess that will never be solved by US intervention, or military might. The Iraqi government, contrary to John McCain's opinon, has always been a puppet, and has cowered inside the secure Green zone in Baghdad because outside of areas controlled and secured by the US Military, they have no credibility or authority. Bush's policy and actions were a monumental failure, and what we have now is the wake of his inept incompetence.