Random thoughts 6

Question for the day: Should the United States pull its troops out of Iraq and surrounding countries in the Middle East to stop the violence?

Not unless everyone stops looking to the United States for leadership is my thought.

If the U.S. pulled out the Middle East, why should it not also pull out all the other countries where it has forces forward deployed?

The problem is that because the U.S. is the 900-pound gorilla in world affairs, it is caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Today, the U.S. with its huge economy that drives much of the world’s commerce is dependent upon and inexorably linked to the economies of other countries. It cannot just withdraw and try to isolate itself, to be dependent on its own resources and no other markets.

The same holds true militarily. There are those who are begging for the Americans to intervene in Dafur and the Sudan, while nothing was done in Bosnia and Kosovo until the Americans took the lead. When disaster strikes, who often is the first responder to bring immediate relief? It is the U.S. military, which has the resources, the training and the capability to go almost anywhere in the world.

Many countries took for granted during the Cold War the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella that kept the Soviet Union at bay for more than 40 years. The war in Korea happened because the U.S. said South Korea was outside its area of interest. The invasion of Kuwait in 1990 happened because the U.S. told Saddam Hussein that the sheikdom was outside the area of American defense interests.

If the Americans are to withdraw, then don’t ask them to return or intervene anywhere, militarily or economically. No military aid or economic assistance and the Americans will not be there to help those asking for American help and/or leadership.

IF the Americans pulled out of Iraq tomorrow (physically impossible, but let’s consider the hypothetical), what would be the result? Would peace immediately descend on Iraq? Does anyone really believe that? No, the factions – tribal groups, clans, Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds – probably would descend into a frenzy of internecine warfare as they jockeyed for power and dominance. Little to no effort would be made to achieve political compromise or community co-existence. And who would be blamed? Not the Iraqis, not the foreign jihadists flooding the country. No, it would be blamed on the Americans.

The Americans always are responsible for everyone else’s problems. It is easier to blame the Americans than to look inward and find where the responsibility truly lies.

The sad thing is the Americans are guppies and they have yet to overcome their innate desire to do good in the world. In their blind arrogance and imperious hubris, surrounded by their incredible wealth, they can’t see that nothing they do in the world will be perceived as attempting to help the less fortunate, to protect the weak, and to help end the killing.