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From a pragmatic perspective, what is the West and the US in particular supposed to do about this? We shouldn't have gone into Iraq in 2003 in the first place,

From a pragmatic perspective, what is the West and the US in particular supposed to do about this? We shouldn't have gone into Iraq in 2003 in the first place, but we did, so what now? Our government is going to keep its boot on the neck of Iraq and stay involved over there as long as Iraq still has oil, right? If the problem now is more that we have too little influence, so what? Are we supposed to try regime change again because it worked so well last time? The current Iraqi regime may not be good, but neither was Saddam. We still should have left Saddam alone, excepting targeted strikes if we ever got good intelligence about WMD programs.

nitwit005 7y ago
If they had the ability to make a functional government, they'd have done it already. People seem to be largely kicking the can down the road until someone else is in office.
lacker 7y ago
Our government is going to keep its boot on the neck of Iraq and stay involved over there as long as Iraq still has oil, right? It doesn't seem like it, no. If the US was still controlling Iraq, we wouldn't be permitting their current government, which is more or less controlled by Iran.
zepearl 7y ago
If somebody leaves a void (US?) then the next strongest force (Iran?) will try to fill it. In the case of Iraq (maybe similar for Syria?) I guess that there aren't probably big motivations/interests nor strong cultural similarities for the West to create something similar to a "Marshall Plan" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan ) to kickstart again the nation and then make it work long-term from both an economic and indirectly social perspective. Therefore, I think that Iraq will just drift more and more towards what will look like the next-best offer(s) (Iran?).
luckylion 7y ago
> We shouldn't have gone into Iraq in 2003 in the first place, but we did, so what now? "Water under the bridge ... what can we fuck up next?" That aside (and no, US/NATO won't learn from that): split Iraq up in three entities (Kurdistan, Sunni and Shia parts), help with the separation, guarantee the agreed upon borders, and then invest lots of money. > The current Iraqi regime may not be good, but neither was Saddam. Compared to post-Saddam Iraq, Saddam was good. Good is relative. Want to lose a finger? Of course not. Want to lose a finger instead of losing both legs? Yeah, losing a finger is okay.

nitwit005 7y ago

If they had the ability to make a functional government, they'd have done it already. People seem to be largely kicking the can down the road until someone else is in office.

lacker 7y ago

Our government is going to keep its boot on the neck of Iraq and stay involved over there as long as Iraq still has oil, right? It doesn't seem like it, no. If the US was still controlling Iraq, we wouldn't be permitting their current government, which is more or less controlled by Iran.

zepearl 7y ago

If somebody leaves a void (US?) then the next strongest force (Iran?) will try to fill it. In the case of Iraq (maybe similar for Syria?) I guess that there aren't probably big motivations/interests nor strong cultural similarities for the West to create something similar to a "Marshall Plan" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan ) to kickstart again the nation and then make it work long-term from both an economic and indirectly social perspective. Therefore, I think that Iraq will just drift more and more towards what will look like the next-best offer(s) (Iran?).

luckylion 7y ago

> We shouldn't have gone into Iraq in 2003 in the first place, but we did, so what now? "Water under the bridge ... what can we fuck up next?" That aside (and no, US/NATO won't learn from that): split Iraq up in three entities (Kurdistan, Sunni and Shia parts), help with the separation, guarantee the agreed upon borders, and then invest lots of money. > The current Iraqi regime may not be good, but neither was Saddam. Compared to post-Saddam Iraq, Saddam was good. Good is relative. Want to lose a finger? Of course not. Want to lose a finger instead of losing both legs? Yeah, losing a finger is okay.