Last night, I watched former US ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, on TV weighing in with the long list of politicians and senior ex-military officers who have publicly expressed their opposition to what is often regarded as the “sudden” or “precipitous” withdrawal of the US troops earlier from Iraq and now Afghanistan. Everyone now claims to have known clearly in advance that things would turn out exactly as they recently have – aka “I told you so!”
Was the collapse of Iraq and now Afghanistan inevitable? If that is the case, how much more resources in men and material will the US taxpayers of both political parties been prepared to invest in these foreign lands? For how much longer? Five more years, or perhaps 50? The answers are far from obvious even for those who claim to be far more knowledgeable than the average man.
In short, are there any prospect of the US troops ever coming home even if, as has now happened, President Barack Obama has succumbed to sustained pressure and suspended indefinitely the complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq? The US at the same time is beefing up its involvement in the fight against the ISIL in the large swathe of territory spanning northern Iraq and Syria.
In the case of Iraq, opponents of President Obama’s policy direction have yet to explain what they mean when they complain that the US administration “should have” bargained “much harder” to be allowed to retain a sizable fighting force in Iraq. Almost nobody points an accusing finger at the now discredited former Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri Al-Maliki, who resolutely refused to grant the terms that the US rightly or wrongly demanded such a force. Based on American concept of exceptionalism, all known hosts of the US forces overseas have in the past granted such terms covering legal and other issues. The same critics would be the same to cry foul and “surrender” if indeed the US bent over backwards and accepted less liberal terms whilst continuing to expend billions of dollars, and the blood of its youths to protect an ungrateful Iraqi nation. It was clearly a no-win situation.
Everyone who had the interest of the long-suffering Iraqi at heart was hoping that the corrupt political class, having stolen enough, would get their act together, bridge the wide Sunni-Shia divide, and save their own nation. Al-Maliki and company adamantly refused to do that. Instead of leaving them to their own devices, diplomats from all over rallied to save a situation that is essentially beyond redemption and railroaded the restive and much maligned Kurds in the north into an unsustainable arrangement that is unravelling by the day. If the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Czechoslovakia could partition thereby presenting a better promise for good neighbourliness, then, the same privileges should be extended to the Iraqi factions. These budding nation states are more likely to cherish their freedom dearly and hence show more patriotic keenness to fight in its defence. That is exactly what the Kurds are doing. On the other hand, the Sunni of the west of Iraq will not be found dead fighting to defend the Shia of Basra and Karbala. And vice versa.
In the unlikely event that the Shia of Iraq want to submit to Iranian rule, they should be free to do so if that will bring that region peace.
Oduche Azih
Okota, Lagos
oducheazih@yahoo.com
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