Iran has been displaying its military power recently and its indifference to directives from the U.S. The country attacks the west in general and Israel in particular via support for the Houthis, Palestinian militant groups (Hamas, UNRWA, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, et al.), and Hezbollah. Iran has also been supplying Russia with drones, thus taking the opposite side of the conflict with Ukraine from the US and Europe.
I’m wondering if the U.S. is ultimately responsible for Iran’s freedom to flex its military muscles. The biggest thorn in Iran’s side was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (eight years of war, for example). By killing Saddam Hussein and trying to run Iraq as our puppet state, the U.S. essentially functioned as Iran’s military ally. More recently, the U.S. has been helping Iran more directly:
- “Biden continues Iran’s access to $10 billion just weeks after its proxy killed three American soldiers” (3/14/2024)
- “Biden Allows Iran to Access Another $10 Billion Amid Gaza War” (11/15/2023)
- “Watch how the Biden administration is defending $6 billion deal with Iran” (10/10/2023)
- “Biden administration restores sanctions waiver to Iran” (Al Jazeera, 2/4/2022): “The waiver, which was rescinded by the Trump administration in May 2020, had allowed Russian, Chinese and European companies to carry out non-proliferation work at Iranian nuclear sites.”
Separately, in May 2024 Joe Biden criticized Israel for killing Hamas soldiers in ways that put non-soldiers (“Hamas voters”?) at risk (AP). This month, Joe Biden criticized Israel for killing a Hamas leader in a way that resulted in zero civilian deaths (Reuters). Maybe there is some ideal ratio of Hamas/non-Hamas deaths that Joe Biden thinks Israel should be required to achieve?
From state-sponsored NPR:
There isn’t a price tag on the above, but I have to believe that Saddam Hussein was able to keep the Iranian military busy at less than 1/50th the dollar cost of what the U.S. military will spend.
Not sure what happened to the promise of operation Iraqi freedom turning Iraq into the arabian police with its own F-35’s & starships. Maybe Kamal will surrender Iraq to the Taliban in a few months & solve the problem. According to the stonk market, Kamal’s victory is a sure thing.
GWB II, and the US should never have toppled Saddam. Period.
How was Iraq worse off under Saddam compared to Saudi Arabia under MBS today or in the past under previous dictators? Same question for Libya, Afghanistan or any other country in the Middle East.
If we care so much about freedom, saving the people of the world from dictatorship that we disagree with, why not send our military might to topple leaders of some other countries that we disagree with their dictator? What about China or Russia?
China and Russia can fight back.
The Iraq war does not seem like a particularly brilliant move by the US for the reason that you mention, that Iran and Iraq kept each other in check. I was reading somewhere that Israeli intelligence was against the overthrow of Saddam for the same reason. On the other hand, like any historical debate, the counterfactual, Saddam still around, is hard to weigh. And part of the reason for going after Saddam was revenge against the Arabs for 9/11 so going after the Persians would not have made sense. And attacking Egypt or Saudi would have been probably even more pointless than attacking Saddam. And remember the zeitgeist, that the Arabs were just like us and would be eager to embrace democracy if only the tyrant were removed.
Exactly, I have never seen anyone make the case that Iraq and the world in general would be better off if Saddam was left in power for the rest of his natural life.
I don’t know if you’ve been sleeping, but the American left is now pretty much openly anti-western/pro-chaos. The left didn’t do Saddam, but they’re certainly okay with the fallout. They don’t seem to take a very hard-line on Iran, and are as anti-Israel as they can possibly get away with being. It’s pretty consistent: whoever is least likely to set up a liberal democracy is who they are helping out. (Directly, or by inaction)
It is maddening that no one seems to understand who are enemies are even when our enemies couldn’t be clearer. Iran is said to be willing to fight to the last Arab. Israel is obliged to be our proxy against Iran and our lack of support is disgraceful and dangerous.
Iranians are Persian not Arab
He didn’t say Iranians are Arab.
20/20 hindsight is the prize for the imbeciles. Good or bad, realistic or not, well executed or a general mess, the invasion of Iraq was done assuming the Iraqis would welcome the liberators, embrace some semblance of western democracy, and let the US park a few military bases on its oil rich soil to threaten both Iraq and Syria at once. It did not work out, that’s a fact, but there was a plan designed to give the US greater power and more direct play in the region, at an acceptable (or even negligible) dollar cost.
The moral of the story being, looking back and being all sanctimonious about how many unintended consequences some poorly planned and executed venture is something every idiot can do. What needs to be done is to get into everybody’s heads that quick obvious simple answers for complex problems do not actually work, and that the US needs a more consistent and coherent foreign policy (across multiple presidencies) to project power and hit fewer SNAFUs.
Federico, I guess you had inside info on Iraq war plan. Because given public info that Clinton officially gave Eltsin green light to supply Iran with nuclear technology and GW Bush explicitely stated that Iran was not a target and US oil companies being barred from bidding on new Iraq government contracts while US troops were protecting it, do not lead to your conclusion about US final intentions in Iraq.
@Federico, this:
> The moral of the story being, looking back and being all sanctimonious about how many unintended consequences some poorly planned and executed venture is something every idiot can do.
I disagree. Why? The Iraq invasion was cooked up on fake reasoning, that Saddam has WMD [1]. There was no hard-fact, but yet the US insisted there is, period.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhWlPo3qxak
Federico: I’m not sure that the U.S. gets off the hook so easily with “it seemed like a great idea at the time”. In the history of humanity, nearly all wars have been fought in order to get stuff. The U.S. seems to be addicted to fighting wars, often halfway around the world, with other goals, e.g., bringing democracy to Iraq, allowing Muslims in Kosovo to have their own country (which gave the Russians the idea that the borders of Europe need not be fixed, according to a US Naval War College professor whose lectures I listened to), saving half of Vietnam from being governed by Communists.
US clearly did not have Iran containment in mind when occupying Iraq. Early in the occupation it started empowerpro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iran, even though Iran was a major supplier of mines and other weapons that were used against American personnel. Statement to the effect that US invaded Iraq in order to weaken Iran is rewriting history.
Is US responsible? No. US is irresponsible. Has US caused it? If you count Clinton, GW Bush, Obama and most recently Biden administrations, then yes. Trump administration – no.
Exactly, and yet democrats and liberals paint Trump as someone who will kill our democracy and freedom!
All the faults that democrats and liberals find in Trump, exists in almost every other US presidents and leaders that we ideal: FJK, MLK or even Reagan.
On August 6 (and 9) I just want to improve my fallout shelter, and can’t decide whether to bet on nuclear winter or global warming… Instability and yanking the rug from under your friends and foes keeps you on top?
The high cost of funding the American Military Industrial Complex is a feature, not a bug.