Yeah but if you leave them be then the guy who replaces Saddam makes him look like a choir boy.
That is why I said you need to install your own dictator almost, like the US and CIA basically did with Iran in the 1950's.
It is just tough for a virtuous nation to have that mindset in the 21st century. Unfortunately it is probably the most realistic solution.
Then hope with the internet opening up and technology that the younger generation wants to be westernized and slowly changes. There is atleast more hope for that to happen than there was in previous generations.
You are talking about Ansar-al-Islam. They were in the North of Iraq before Operation Iraqi Freedom. They were an offshoot of al-Queda.
I don't recall AQ in places like Baghdad, Mosul or Tikrit.
It's natural in Arab nations with minority rule dictatorships that are overthrown, such as Saddam (Sunni) for there to be backlash when the dictator is removed. It's even worse when Shia rule takes over and now its Sunnis being sidelined.
Bush probably made an error disbanding the entire Iraqi army, as some of the remnants became members of ISIS.
But I still think the two main mistakes belong to Obama. He let the SOFA expire. And worse yet (well, not for him) he played election politics and kept his promise when he told the big lie, "We must end the war in Iraq to fight the real war, which is in Afghanistan."
It's easy to see why he made this statement. Americans were sick of Iraq. Knowing he had the Dem vote locked up anyway he wanted to sway some of the (I) and (R) vote that he was still tough on terror. So he painted a picture that it was necessary to remove troops from Iraq and redeploy them to Afg. It was well-timed election sloganeering. And now ironically Obama isn't winning in either of those countries.
If SOFA didn't expire and we just ran it to completion then we would be there forever delaying the inevitable. Perhaps we pull it off, who knows? I wouldn't bet on it.
The worst mistake was invading in the first place.
Americans don't follow geopolitics so they have no clue what we're trying to do. If they knew the massive undertaking and the level of ambition we were attempting, the sheer amount of money and time this undertaking would take, then the majority of them would not have been on board with it. The invasion was not sold as nation building for a reason, because that shit is a lot harder than blowing shit up.
It all comes back to the goal of installing democracy in Iraq was the height of hubris.
Extremism at its origin is bred by dictatorship. By definition a dictatorship is a slave nation. Everything is controlled including information. Naturally the dictator is pillaging the society. The society sinks to a level that makes the dictatorship unsustainable, UNLESS the dictator can find an outside source on which to blame all the nation's problems. Since the dictator controls the news cycle he can now cast blame on America. Now it isn't the dictatorship that has ruined the nation, it is "America." And "Western Values." And that is how you breed terrorism, and export it outside where it attacks other nations, and sustains the dictator inside.
What happened to the poster Moneyline? He was prolific in these discussions.
