HAUNTING IRAQ NIGHTMARE

Among the myriad things we have forgotten about the horrid two terms of George W. Bush, the Iraqi mistake hangs over us.  It will haunt us for a long, long time.  Anyone with any historical and current understanding of the Iraq "nation" knew what a terrible mistake was made invading that sovereign nation.  Yes, Saddam was a horrible leader, but no nation, including the U.S., has the right to trump up false charges to justify such an invasion.  And have the ongoing ignorance and bravado to celebrate our "victory" there with a broad "Mission Accomplished" sign as President Bush had one shaky hand on the steering wheel of the plane that landed on a aircraft carrier with him in full military gear.  Shades of the AWOL military reservist Bush.

While Bush slinked out of the White House, conservatives, wishing to cover-up the Iraqi mistake, celebrated the new direction taken by General Petraeus.   That new direction shook out this way in Iraq.  To quell the Sunni insurgency, the U.S. under the new general's leadership, secretly put the Sunni military on the payroll of the United States.  The cost: $30 million a month.  And it was done without the knowledge of the Shiite government in Baghdad.  Who knows what else they were promised?  But this much I know.  The Sunni leaders thought they would get autonomy in their western province, a share in Iraqi oil revenue, and a voice in the national government in Iraq.  It does not look as though the central, Shiite-led government in Baghdad is prepared to grant those wishes.  And that government hated the deal the Americans cut wth the Sunnis.

As President Obama guides the pull-out in Iraq next summer, the real battle for Iraq will take place.  The inevitable civil war will wage on fiercely.  The mess we caused will begin to explode openly.  The Sunnis and the Kurds will blame the Shiite-led government, the Arab Iraqis will blame the United States, the American conservatives will blame Obama, the liberals will blame the conservatives, and so forth.  The mess will be the inevitable outcome that was to come about from the day we illegally invaded that sovereign nation.

Iraq never was a nation, in the truest sense of the word.  It was cobbled together primarily by the British Empire.  It always took a strong, military power to hold it together.  When the European colonialists lost control of Iraq, it was confused and lacked strong leadership until Saddam took control and brought a Sunni government to rule the Shiite-majority nation.  Hatred continued to simmer as Saddam ruled with a ruthless iron hand.  The Sunnis were given special considerations.  The Shiites and Kurds waited their chance.  Shiite Iran fought a bitter war with Sunni-led Iraq.  Saddam gassed the Kurds.  When we invaded, the bitterness that was divided among the Moslems in the area, solidified in their new hatred of the United States.  A mess was created for America throughout the Middle East.  It was inevitable.  Anyone with any insight into the area realized this.  The absolute ignorance of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al did not see it, and in their ignorant bliss they celebrated and then trumped up excuses for their horrible failure.  The Middle East was thrown into a worse cauldron than before.  Crazy!

Now it is time to pay the piper in Iraq.  Even with all their oil revenue, they cannot survive the divisionary rumble that we helped create.  As we pull out and problems arise, the U.S. will be blamed for it all.  It will be our sad legacy in the Middle East.