If one wants learn a lesson from history, then reading the above article should be on your reading list.
Synopsis: When the U.S. gets involved in a conflict, regardless of intentions, efforts, justification, it will not win. It will own the conflict and the parties in it will cease to own their own roles. Everything bad that happens inside the country involved that is bad is the fault of the Americans, and no credit is given to the Americans for any good. In addition, there is anger at the Americans because they did not automatically, magically and instantly solve all the problems that besiege a country.
If you review the history basically since World War II, you will find that is the case. It is sad, in a way, but then truth always is the first casualty in wars, civil or uncivil, and to quote Winston Churchill: It must be protected and guarded by a phalanx of lies.
Currently, there is a civil war going on in Syria. We know that because the International Committee of the Red Cross has decreed it. There also is a civil war still going in Iraq. Now, the U.S. does not “own” the civil war in Syria (even though our president has decided to aid one side against the other) and despite what some people will try to tell you, it bears no responsibility for the civil war in Iraq. In both cases, it is the people in those ravaged countries who are choosing to use violence to resolve their problems.
In Syria, a basically oppressive minority regime seeks to retain power and, so far, has retained the loyalty of considerable portions of the nation’s military. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks. It doesn’t matter what people think the U.S. or the U.N. should or should not do. The result will, in the end, be a verification of Chairman Mao’s axiom: All power flowers out the barrel of a gun. We will see this in Syria. We will see it in Iraq. We will see it in Iran … and when the day is done, we will see it in Afghanistan.
The problem for the Americans is that they live in a world that no longer is comfortable with this maxim. We want to believe that force is not the ultimate decider in all conflicts. Bloodied by more than three-quarters of devastating warfare, the Europeans are hoping on hope that their experiment with the European Union will break this truth. Watching what is happening in Europe today, the likelihood of that seems to be receding. Maybe the Europeans will make it work, but history is not on their side.
In the Middle East, new reports point to the Iranians building nuclear weapons.Memri.org report
Again, is this a problem for the Americans? What should the Americans do?
I point to the simple fact that the Americans do not have any magic wands. We can’t solve anything anywhere unless the people on the ground are willing to help solve it themselves. We should have learned, that even though we may be entirely justified, that we might be doing it with all the best of intentions, the unreal expectations of other nations will neither thank, nor probably help, the Americans.
It is something you need to think about.
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