(June 17, 2014 at 3:09 pm)Dragonetti Wrote: At the time of withdrawal, Maliki did not want US Forces at all.

I was part of the last staging for the removal of all US Forces. The elections were one sided. He wanted to give Shittes all the power, and make the Sunnis second class citizens. There was no back room deals, they were not signing the SOFA period.

That is likely because the US would not have given Maliki a blank check to make the US overtly complicit in subjugation of Sunnis. So Maliki would be a deadman if he consented to US staying under these conditions when he could get the US out.

So we bluffed by saying we will leave if he doesn't sign SOFA. He bluffed by saying he doesn't need us.

Maliki called our bluff first, now we can call his bluff.

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(June 17, 2014 at 2:49 pm)Tonus Wrote:

(June 16, 2014 at 10:14 pm)Heywood Wrote: I think our error in Iraq was not the invasion part. The invasion was the easy part. Where we screwed up is in disbanding the Iraqi army and marginalizing the Sunni's.

I think Dubya's administration saw the possibility of having bases literally in the middle of the middle east, and was willing to risk it. The possibility that it would lead to more wars and not less may also have been seen as a feature and not a bug.

Dubya's administration thought the middle east was a computer game, inhabited by sims that aspire to become paler versions of neoconservatives, and to which they have the cheat codes. They had no idea there was a reality in the middle east so entrenched that it has lasted longer than the English language.

(June 17, 2014 at 3:36 pm)Chuck Wrote: That is likely because the US would not have given Maliki a blank check to make the US overtly complicit in subjugation of Sunnis. So Maliki would be a deadman if he consented to US staying under these conditions when he could get the US out.

So we bluffed by saying we will leave if he doesn't sign SOFA. He bluffed by saying he doesn't need us.

Maliki called our bluff first, now we can call his bluff.

Question is, do we really even care to now?

My guess the reaction from the American public and political leaders is going to be...

(June 17, 2014 at 4:10 pm)Creed of Heresy Wrote: My guess the reaction from the American public and political leaders is going to be...

At least in Iraq there is Iran to help keep the whole mess from turning into a Sunni terrorist state. What do you suppose will be the reaction when Taliban takes over Afghanistan?

I say, let the ISIS and Iran have it out. We should just stay out of their politics. Since, they proclaim all the wars being political, but forgetting Islam is a political system as well.

Quote:An Obama administration proposal to keep a few thousand American troops here after the end of the year to train the Iraqi military is being scaled back, as the administration has concluded that the Iraqi Parliament would not give the troops legal protection, two American officials said on Saturday.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/u-s-aba...e-in-iraq/


And, before anyone forgets WHY the Iraqis would not give legal cover to American personnel...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/01...09212.html

Quote:BAGHDAD — Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a U.S. judge's decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings.

The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the U.S. and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge's decision as proof of what they'd long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law.

"There is no justice," said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. "I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square."

What happened on Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, raised Iraqi concerns about their sovereignty because Iraqi officials were powerless to do anything to the Blackwater employees who had immunity from local prosecution. The shootings also highlighted the degree to which the U.S. relied on private contractors during the Iraq conflict.

(June 17, 2014 at 4:27 pm)Minimalist Wrote: "private contractors"

That's odd. When I was in the military we called them 'mercenaries'.

So did Machiavelli:

Quote:Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.

(June 17, 2014 at 4:53 pm)Minimalist Wrote: So did Machiavelli:

Quote:Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.

Well, yeah, I don't go around quoting Machiavelli, though. The man was an enormous dick. Smart, but a dick nonetheless.

Actually, he was an idealist. He convinced Florence to equip a citizen militia on the ancient Roman model and when the French invaded they ran like rabbits. Sounds like shi'ites, no?

Looks as if Turkey is thinking this over.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/17...04309.html

Quote:ERBIL, Iraq -- In a statement that could have a dramatic impact on regional politics in the Middle East, a spokesman for Turkey's ruling party recently told a Kurdish media outlet that the Kurds in Iraq have the right to self-determination. The statement has been relatively overlooked so far, but could signal a shift in policy as Turkey has long been a principal opponent of Kurdish independence, which would mean a partitioning of Iraq.

"The Kurds of Iraq can decide for themselves the name and type of the entity they are living in," Huseyin Celik, a spokesman for the Justice and Development Party, told the Kurdish online news outlet Rudaw last week.