From BOPnews
Chris Floyd argues that Iraq is being deliberately turned into a failed state. I think this is a bit behind the curve, Iraq has been allowed to sink into long term conflict status for a very long time. The reality is that simply not making extreme effort to stabilize it is enough to turn it into a failed state. But he is right that there was a depraved indifference in our policy to the results of our actions.
It could also be that, given the US is losing in Iraq and that hegemony over the Middle East has been a stated US foreign policy goal for decades, that the neocons want chaos and the country splitting so they can grab and control the oil-rich southern part of Iraq. In other words, they want Iraq to fail, to split into pieces. Then they can grab some of those pieces.
Or try to grab them, that is. The populace, the insurgents, will still oppose them. This is something US warlords never grasped during Vietnam and isn’t grasping now. That’s why they’re losing.
I’m not sure where, but a many years ago I read a paper that projected that the best way to depower the countries in that region was to exploit the artificial borders imposed on them through their colonization, and fractionalize them into their cultural parts.
In Iraq, as example, the idea would be to break it into three smaller parts Kurd, Shia, and Sunni which could then be played against each other to prevent any one from developing a realistic military threat to Israel or US interests.
Much like the US did in supplying both sides of the Iran/Iraq war, trying to manage a continual stalemate, the Kurds could be used to counter the Sunnis or Shia.
The thing is, you can’t issue that as policy when you invade Iraq. You can’t say, we’re going into Iraq to break it up and set it back twenty five years.
So, although I’m not sold on the idea that that was the goal of the invasion, looking at the lack of strategy to build Iraq up after the invasion, I’m willing to entertain the argument.
Mike
If you accept that it was the oil that they went in after why should they want a stable Iraqi government where the people have a say in what that government does. Would such a country with such a government allow America a free hand over its oil? I have always maintained that there was no intention of stting up a stable country as that would not work in the interests of the invaders.
Maybe they really were so deluded that they thought flowers would be strewn in their paths. Who knows? They probably wanted a stable puppet government who wouldn’t squawk when the US grabbed the oil.
Of course, neither happened.
I still maintain that governments tied up with the corporate world do not really care what happens on the ground, that’s just people. There’s money to be made from war and oil. People dying is just part and parcel of the business, that is until the people wise up and call a halt. When has America or Britain invaded for the purpose of setting up a democracy, where have they set up a democracy? Imerialist wars are for one purpose only, the consequences on the people are of little interest or concern. We are the cannon fodder for the imperial machine.