Blog | Obama has (maybe unwisely) bombed 7 Middle Eastern countries. Will bombing one more (Iran) make him seem ‘strong’?
Today is the day a solid framework for an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program is supposed to come together. I’m hoping something does, because if it doesn’t, we get closer to yet another war in the Middle East.
The U.S. waring in that region hasn’t turned out well for more than three decades. Why should we believe more bombing would change things now?
Remember, we secretly undermined a democratically-elected government in Iran decades ago.
We helped Iraq - and Saddam Hussein - in its fight against Iran.
We kicked Iraq out of Kuwait.
We helped what would become the Taliban - including Osama bin Laden - kick the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
We launched a full-scale war in Afghanistan after the 9-11 attacks.
We later risked a war, or at least a deadly skirmish with Pakistan, to capture and kill our former ally - Osama bin Laden.
We launched a full-scale war against Iraq and captured our old ally - Saddam Hussein - who was later hanged.
We launched a partial, short war in Libya.
We’ve launched a persistent drone war and have bombed 7 Middle Eastern countries during the Obama administration, even as we scaled back boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And during that entire period, our CIA and Special Forces have been doing all sorts of things under the radar of which we never have a full accounting for.
Related: Iraqi militias traveling to Yemen to fight U.S. backed coalition
That has meant the spending of trillions of dollars in that region, and a loss of life that’s too high to even imagine.
And for all of that, what has it gotten us?
And despite all of that, there are many people claiming we need to do more bombing and even attack Iran. Huh?
That doesn’t even include other realities on the ground. If we fight ISIL in Syria, we are having a dictator in Syria. If we fight ISIL in Iraq, we are helping Iran.
If we get too involved in the conflict with air strikes, some Islamic sects, potential U.S. allies, will back off.
No matter what we do in that region, blowback is likely. Think about it this way: We went all in in Iraq and that didn’t turn out well. We went partially in the Libya conflict, now a civil war is brewing there. In Yemen, we went the drone and special ops route, and there is a growing conflict there.
When will we realize that, because of the complexity of the region, no matter how wonderful the U.S. military is, it’s not the answer?
And though we are the globe’s lone Super Power, we can’t control everything, make them turn out the way we like. Why can’t we see that?
If this is what an anti-war presidency looks like to you, you're detached from reality:
Nobody will say that they want US troops on the ground to fight Isis, of course, since public support for such action is crumbling .
But as the Council on Foreign Relations’ Douglas Dillon Fellow Micah Zenko tweeted recently, “If 30 years of US as military hegemon in the Middle East resulted in the region today, why would more suddenly stabilize things?” No one seems to be willing to face the stark fact that US involvement is as much the cause of the instability as it is the alleged solution.
Those clamoring for more war are detached from reality: the US is already escalating – not pulling back – its involvement across the Middle East. In Afghanistan, the president has quietly delayed pulling US troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year so they can continue special forces raids and drone strikes, despite loudly celebrating the supposed “end” of combat operations during the State of the Union in January . In Iraq, US forces escalated its airstrikes in the so-called battle to re-take Tikrit, which the New York Times editorial board decried as a folly, but received scant scrutiny elsewhere. The Pentagon also confirmed last week that they expect the Isis war to last “3+ years.”
And if you think the United States is sitting on the sidelines in Yemen just because it’s not US planes physically launching the missiles (yet), you should have your head examined. The US has given Saudi Arabia an astronomical $90bn in military equipment and weapons over the past four years and, as the Washington Post reported , it will play a “huge” role in any fighting. US drones are also still patrolling Yemeni skies and even helping Saudi Arabia “decide what and where to bomb”, according to the Wall Street Journal .
This story was originally published March 31, 2015 at 9:46 AM with the headline "Blog | Obama has (maybe unwisely) bombed 7 Middle Eastern countries. Will bombing one more (Iran) make him seem ‘strong’?."