The Iraq war is over, the US lost and have been shown the door

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Some reflection on what has happened the years and in particular in the last month:

It started when the Iraqis under Bush refused to sign a SOFA agreement (look it up yourself). That was a sign of things to come. After Al Maliki had consolidated his power, he didn't need the US any longer. These negotiations have been ongoing ever since, with the US hawks insisting that they needed a long term presence in Iraq. Apparently the US hawks needed it more than the Iraqis, since the Iraqis said thanks, but no thanks. They meant it. A week ago they made their last offer - 5.000 US trainers, no immunity from Iraqi law - take it or leave it. The US subsequently dropped their demand for an 'enduring US presence'. That's it.

There has been no decisive defeat of the US in this war of choice, but neither has there been a victory, in the sense that supposed key US objectives have been achieved, short of getting Saddam killed and the Baath party destroyed.

What do we see today, more than eight years later? A pro-US regime? Nah, by virtue of old ties of friendship and religious kinship, the Iranians are the Iraqi government's best friend. Iranian generals broker deals between rival Shiite Iraqi factions, not the US State Department. A free market paradise (where, you can't make that up, Grover Norquist slashed taxes and authored Iraqi law according to his preferences)? Riight. A blossoming democracy at the Tigris? Nah, they only got a Shiite strongman now. A pro-Israeli Iraq? Are you kidding? Neo-con favourite Ahmed Chalabi as their man delivering the goods? LOL! Woman's rights? Woman had better job opportunities and more rights under Saddam. WMD? Oh, I beg you ... The oil? Aah, the oil ...

If it only had been about the oil ... well, it wasn't: The key neo-con decision makers were under the delusion that, by divine grace and by it's earthly might, the US were called upon to lift up the wretched Middle East, starting in Baghdad (but not ending there), from it's miserable backwardness and transform these poor unwashed Muslims into 'the modern man' in their own secular, western image, which would also, handily, rid them of that inexplicable animosity towards Israel so that everyone would live happily ever after. And there you thought US conservatives were opposed to social engineering. Not in Iraq it seems.

It's sickening to think about the toll that grand folly has exacted from Iraqis and US servicemen alike. So supposedly all that was worth it? Well, certainly in that illustrious collection of self-justifying and self-defending auto-biographies of the recent years.

Pat Lang elaborates:

 

So far history has shown that the Middle-East always survived the powers that went there to play.

The middle-east is a no-go place. But it's the resources there, that makes the outside powers come back for more!


@ Rag;

So true!
The amount of books, that various (involved) people keep publishing/writing was so rainbow-press-ish!

 

The entire war was a farce to begin with.

The US lost everything big time when they 'elected' Bush