ISIS on the offensive in Iraq

[Beskar]

What tickles me is how the 'savour' of Iraq is Iran and the Shia Militas (the ones who fought the Allies), these who supported the regime in Syria and fought on their side. Whilst ISIS who was partially assisted by the Allies in the rebellion in Syria is the one assaulting Iraq.

Where is the link to that 'summary of the Middle East' which shows how much of a mess it is...

[Pannonian]

What tickles me is how the 'savour' of Iraq is Iran and the Shia Militas (the ones who fought the Allies), these who supported the regime in Syria and fought on their side. Whilst ISIS who was partially assisted by the Allies in the rebellion in Syria is the one assaulting Iraq.

Where is the link to that 'summary of the Middle East' which shows how much of a mess it is...

Which goes to show that "wait and see" is at least as viable a strategy in that region as the "fight for freedom". We upset the balance when we toppled Saddam, who, while not exactly a friend to us, was at least an enemy of our enemies, and who was doing an effective job of keeping them down without any involvement on our part, and thus without any reason for the loonies to resent us for keeping them down. Even though we weren't getting exactly what we wanted, it was close enough, without any expenditure of effort or resources on our part. The argument I made against war on Saddam in 2003 was just about the same as the one I made against war on Assad in 2013. In one case we went to war and are bitterly regretting it after wrecking our economy and reputation in going about it. In the other case, we didn't go to war, and I think we're bloody happy about our second thoughts.

[a completely inoffensive name]

The situation will only deteriorate further if we try to interfere. Iraq was a state held together by violence (Saddam's Baath party). Did anyone really think this would have changed because we built new roads everywhere?

[Papewaio]

If they didnt have oil would they have the money to arm themselves in a meaningful manner?

Oil is generally explored for, drilled by and refined by ex-pats. True more and more locals are getting skilled enough in engineering and sciences to do it themselves which is a good thing.

But take away the wears dependency for oil and how much clout would the Middle East or Russia have in today's world?

[Tellos Athenaios]

The oil angle is overplayed by everybody. Oil is a global commodity, so at most the Bush administration hoped to drive down global prices somehow. The fact is that Iraq still hasn't caught up to pre-war oil production levels. If anything, that makes life easier for Russia, but not that much easier. China now has the biggest stake in the middle-east, and in the next decade we'll see them try and deal with this crap. The sooner we leave, the sooner they can get started.

No they won't. They have enough domestic issues as it is without pressing for reforms that their leadership is unwilling to commit to themselves, so they'll be 'happy' to let the Middle East fester and deal with whomever appears to be the dominant powers as long as the Middle East doesn't attempt to stir things up in China itself...

They have a long tradition of 'whatever floats your boat as long as you do not try to export it here' when it comes to dealing with inconvenient allies of necessity. The only thing they might press for is for US imposed trade sanctions to be lifted, because it would be convenient for China to be able to do more business with Iran (oil, large untapped market).

[Tellos Athenaios]

But its already begun. The middle-east is surrounded by Chinese economic development programs, and China is now more dependent than anyone else on middle-eastern oil. India, too, will be getting more closely involved in the middle-east. Look for them to get heavily involved in Afghanistan after we leave.

India already is, much to the chagrin of Pakistan IIRC. Point is: both countries have a fundamentally less invasive attitude towards what goes on in the Middle East. So they won't be dealing with the 'crap', if they can avoid it and they will be able to avoid it since they don't walk around with an attitude that tends to make one slip up and land in the brown stuff.

In other words: can you imagine China doing an operation Iraqi Freedom? No? Attempting to broker a peace between Israel and Palestine incurring significant loss of face over the farce that is the remnants of every accord ever signed? What, China just will quietly ignore it, and thereby avoid burning bridges, you say?

Why is that? I'll tell you: it's a particular mindset championed by Western Europeans & Americans that leads to these grand ideas to fix everything once and for all. Well intentioned though they might be, they are also risky and have a habit of backfiring spectacularly in the Middle East which is consistently more messed up than we seem to grasp.

China will simply buy the oil quietly and focus its diplomatic energies elsewhere -- nevermind how bad of a hellhole the Middle East becomes: not their problem, not theirs to fix. They have their dogma, they have their blind spots but these all concern other countries which are more credible threats to Chinese business as usual: North Korea, Japan, Russia, India, the USA.

India isn't much different: they have, if possible, even bigger social issues to sort out first, and anyway they too prefer to focus on securing their trade and supply routes over the Indian Ocean. Apart from that they have Pakistan to worry about and much of their action in Afghanistan are a direct countermeasure to perceived Pakistani influence/threats.

[Viking]

And so the intervention is about to begin, it seems:

US President Barack Obama says he has authorised air strikes against Islamic militants in northern Iraq but will not send US troops back to the country.

He said Islamic State (IS) fighters would be targeted to prevent the slaughter of religious minorities, or if they threaten US interests.

Strikes have not yet begun, but the US has made humanitarian air drops to Iraqis under threat from the militants.

But this is unlikely to have a decisive effect on the larger war, if I get it correctly.