The Shattering Middle East
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 18th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
The Shattering Middle East
David Ignatius, RealClearPolitics
WASHINGTON — Let’s look at the reality on the ground in the Middle East: Iraq and Syria are effectively partitioned along sectarian lines; Lebanon and Yemen are close to fracturing; Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia survive intact, but as increasingly authoritarian states. In the current, chaotic moment, we see two post-imperial systems collapsing at once: The state boundaries drawn by the Versailles Treaty in 1919 to replace the Ottoman Empire can’t hold the fractious peoples together. And a U.S.-led system that kept the region in a rough balance has been shattered by America’s failed…
Slaughter in Iraq — Bush’s Fault?
Larry Elder, RealClearPolitics
President Barack Obama, on Dec. 12, 2011, called Iraq “self-reliant and democratic.” He praised that country, calling it a “new Iraq that’s determining its own destiny — a country in which people from different religious sects and ethnicities can resolve their differences peacefully through the democratic process.” Obama said, “I have no doubt that Iraq can succeed.” He campaigned to end the war in Iraq. He did — at least he ended America’s military involvement in the war. He pulled out all the troops, without leaving a residual force behind as we did, for example, in South Korea, where we…
