tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3647180678398772674.post4712012668663782935..comments2024-03-29T04:40:00.922-07:00Comments on Six Foot Turkey: ISIS and ResponsibilityJoshua Leachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04786588059362202964noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3647180678398772674.post-54517232879540824802014-06-22T19:36:36.864-07:002014-06-22T19:36:36.864-07:00As usual an interesting and insightful post. A par...As usual an interesting and insightful post. A particularly compelling point on the problem of the supposed inevitability of the Sunni/Shia conflict. If I may ramble:<br /><br />I'm a bit more skeptical than you are that Iran and Saudi Arabia have a vested interest in the status quo. Certainly the Saudis benefit from harming Iran and the Iranians benefit from being able to become a valuable powerbroker in the region, gaining favor from the US as long as the crisis lasts. The Kurds particularly gain from the legitimacy that the instability brings, I wonder how long it will be before we again see uninformed American policymakers making noises about the desirability to creating an independent Kurdistan. <br /><br />This whole affair has again brought up how little supposed security experts within the American government actually understand about the Middle East. A few weeks ago in one of the major military journals a Colonel was proposing that the United States remake the map of the Middle East, among other things dividing Iraq into three sections. I've heard whispers about how we should be looking at the old "Biden Plan" to chop up Iraq.<br /><br />All told I can't see how this ends well. Even disregarding moral considerations (as you know I'm rather weighed down by a pacifist perspective) and working from a realist perspective it really does seem that American military power would not be of much help. That assumes of course that the American public would support any significant military action anyway.<br /><br />The comparison of Iraq to Vietnam is of course somewhat cliche, but it is becoming more apt. In both cases the United States created a state that has little claim to legitimacy. Obama has had everyone in the White House read Gordon Goldstein's "Lessons in Disaster" about Vietnam so he understands that an unstable government in South Vietnam was the real problem in that war, hence his insistence on governmental reform as a prerequisite for American military assistance in Iraq. That said the US has floated the idea that the State and Law Coalition should replace Maliki, which may suggest that American policymakers are less aware that replacing the leaders of South Vietnam was one of the less successful parts of our counterinsurgency strategy then.<br /><br />Anyway, however you cut it the situation is a mess. Maybehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08849519946091036593noreply@blogger.com