http://blogs.detroitnews.com/politics/2014/06/17/iraq/
JUN 17, 2014, 12:00 PM
Dawud Walid: Keep our military out of the mess in Iraq
President Barack Obama’s order to deploy 275 troops to help further secure America’s largest embassy in the world, which resides in Baghdad, is emblematic of failed foreign policy that has contributed to the current chaos in the region.
Before the American invasion into Iraq in 2003, which was based on misinformation, Al-Qaeda affiliated groups were not operating in the country.
As treacherous as Saddam Hussein was, there were no suicide bombings in markets and attacks upon mosques and churches in Iraq, nor religiously segregated neighborhoods in Baghdad. The occupation opened up Pandora’s Box by destablizing civil institutions in which our military and the Iranian government armed Shia groups. Then our military armed Sunni militias to fight the Al-Qaeda fighters who enter the country after America’s ill-conceived invasion.
Both groups, using American weapons, then began to fight each other, which any political science rookie could have predicted. President George W. Bush, at the time of the initial military incursion, did not even know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims, much less had any reasonable calculation of the hell that would be unleashed due to the occupation.
Meanwhile, in Iraq and Syria, havoc is being spawned by the murderous group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a group so extreme that even Al-Qaeda has condemned it.
In the face of the ISIS threat, there is discussion that Obama will logistically cooperate with Iran, a country our government says sponsors terrorism, to combat the spread of ISIS as Bush did with Iran when we invaded Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, a terrorist group which was once an American ally.
It’s one big hot mess, right?
Now Obama is compelled to send American troops to defend our monstrous embassy in Baghdad which, if attacked, would lead many politicians will be to call for full-blown military retaliation. Given the Benghazi incident in Libya and the rhetoric which has followed, we all know the script.
The last thing Iraq needs is American military intervention. I hope that the American people raise their voice against American military re-involvement in Iraq. Using diplomacy and not arming any of the parties is the best option that Obama has at this point.
