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Originally Posted by Skybird
... Bush sn's premature ending of the second Gulf War, was stupid, cynical, and short-sighted.
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Bush Sr. had the backing and participation of the U.N., Egypt, U.K., Canada, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, France, Syria and dozens of other nations for the specific reason of removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The so called second war by Bush Jr. wasn't nearly as popular. But we went to oust an increasingly troublesome dictator. Could have been we went in to remove a loose cannon and tie up incriminating loose ends, maybe the fear of a nuclear 911 influenced the decision to get closer to Iran and squash their ambitions, or the Carter Doctrine dictated we expand our presence to head off Chinese and Russian influence in the region or any combination thereof. We'll probably never know for sure and I bet there's a truck load more going on than we'll ever know.
Iraq was already divided and once Hussein was ousted it was inevitable that new borders would develop between the predominate Shiite tribe and the minority Suuni and Kurdish tribes. As for ending the war it can be said overt military aggression has ceased. But coalition forces are still operating in the area, still building bases and expanding our presence there. We never left, and I think until Iran's current leadership is replaced with someone more to our (coalition) liking we're going to remain in Iraq, and the predominately Suuni Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
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The new "friendship" between Israel and Arab nations, is not really friendship, but owes to the perception of a shared enemy, Iran, and narcissism of Arab leaders who want to boast with F35s. The general antisemitic sentiment against Jews are not affected by all this, Islam's hostility against Jews (any everything not being Islam's) lives on. The situaiton has a certain effect of containign Turkey, which slowly raises to one of the biggest troublemakers.
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I tend to agree, and likely why Shiite nations like Iran continue to blame Israel for everything going on to weaken those relations.