Rural Ruminations

What Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us and what Syria and Iran can teach us further is that American needs to have a robust debate on if, why, where and when we should be involved in future foreign interventions.

In 2001, solely as a result of the events of 9/11, the United States invaded Afghanistan.  There were some Americans who spoke out against that invasion, largely on moral grounds, but in the main, we understood why we were doing it and agreed with that invasion.

In the longer run, as is now becoming painfully clear to the average American, absent repressive governance, the bitterly tribal Afghanis are so resistant to any central government that they are unlikely to achieve any kind of unity.  The likely result is instability.

When we had wiped out Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, we shifted our aim to Iraq and for reasons still largely unknown to the American people, we invaded there.  In our rationale for that invasion, we painted Iraq as “a regime that developed and used weapons of mass destruction, that harbored and supported terrorists, committed outrageous human rights abuses, and defied the just demands of the United Nations and the world”.

None of those reasons passed muster with us.

Although most of our governmental and academic experts on the region said that would not work, the Bush administration implemented the plan.  Since then, we have seen no sign of ultimate success.  Sectarian and national differences within that country make unity illusory, as many experts told us in 2003.  How can we expect Sunni, Shia, Arab and Kurd to get together when they have never previously done so except when coerced?  The likely result is instability.

Our next Middle East adventure was in Libya where we became involved primarily with air support for the anti-Ghaddafi rebels.  In the case of Libya, we were ultimately “successful” in that the rebels did bring about the demise of Ghaddafi.  In the longer run, we are seeing the effect of centuries-old tribal realities – about 150 of them – which split the country and make non-coercive, central government extremely difficult, if not impossible.  The likely result is instability.

Now, the pressure is on here at home for us to “do something” in Syria.  “Do something” apparently ranges in the minds of Americans from Invasion, through air support, to the creation of “safe zones”, but the fact is that we really don’t know what to do.

In Syria sectarianism is at work.  It is a country ruled by a 12% minority Shiite government of Alawites, over the the 74% majority Sunnis.  Since its beginnings in 1963, it has not been a happy arrangement.  The people don’t like either the Baath Party or the Assad family.  Unfortunately, that’s about all they have in common.  There is no indication that those rebellious Syrians have anything much in common when it comes to what sort of post-Assad, post-Alawite government they would support.  Given the extent of anger on both sides, it is probably safe to assume that the losers in this ongoing

struggle will exit Syria in coffins.  There seems to be little hope for a triumph of either reason or humanity.  The likely result is instability.

And finally, let’s move on to Iran where American pro-war activists and the Israeli government are clambering for the invasion of a country which has not yet decided, according to the US and Israeli governments, whether or not to build nuclear weapons, where the Supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has referred to nuclear weapons as a sin and where, in 2005, he issued a fatwa forbidding their production, stockpiling and use.

Given the other salient realities of Iran and their unquestioned ability to harm our interests in the region, one has to wonder why we are so intent on an attack. In addition, there are current Iranian overtures for talks and the fact remains that any attack on Iran will be the only event that will unite the fractious and unhappy Iranians under its current leaders, which is certainly not in our interest.

The real issue here is whether or not Americans want to be involved in such activities at all and if we do, how will we decide where to intervene?  Is it in our national interest?  Should we involve ourselves in Syria, Iraq, or, as President Obama seems to wish, in Central Africa?

The American people have never had that discussion.  With a war-weary population and before we rush off to some new “worthy” intervention, the discussion simply has to take place.