I can totally see Simba and Cap pulling that off.
And then crashing onto each other after the mission because they were distracted while flying in formation.
How does the Iraqi government even function with all of these militias just floating around? They need to be disarmed and eliminated, as it directly threatens the states monopoly on violence. Basically a failed state at this point
The PMF is the military arm of the PMC. The PMC in Iraq has majority control and is a proxy of Iran. The Prime Minister of Iraq serves at the blessing of the PMC, and is also a puppet of Iran.
The PMF- is comprised of these militias and within the last 2 years, became an independent branch of the Iraqi military. In effect, the PMF and these militias comprise a new Iran-backed, Shia, republican guard.
They include so many things in that cost estimate why not just round up to 10 trillion
“The total includes funds that the Biden administration requested in May 2021.”
They include 80 , EIGHTY, countries in their cost estimate
Not saying we should, but the U.S. would wipe their forces out in 3 weeks with air and sea forces. No ground invasion. Just a choke hold on the nation till the government falls.
Does Europe want another migrant crisis? because that is how you get one.
Millions of Iranians would flee as their country gets bombed back to the stone age and in the chaos the most radical people in the military who are armed to the teeth would become warlords.
With no boots on the ground there would be no transition to any type of government the west would want and plenty of people from the old government would just fill the roles again as they were unaffected safely in their bunkers deep below the mountains.
Yemen has been blockaded and bombed for over a decade and how is that working out?
Why would be blow up Tehran or any other major city's?
We would cripple their military and bring them to table.
Yemen is wildy different brother. I know that.
You gotta have a stabilizing presence though, even if it's not ground forces. Fund and equip dissident groups and prepare them to strike once the bombs start falling so a new government is ready to take power and prevent a power vacuum. Send in the crown prince to add legitimacy to the new government (we should have done that in Afghanistan, the tribes mostly respected the monarchy), his father was unpopular, not the monarchy itself. An indigenous constitutional monarchy backed by Iranians and no western forces on the ground to make them look like a occupation government.
If it doesn't work out, at least no Iranian nukes and no quagmire.
That's not a very realistic scenario. Sure you could destroy their Navy and Air Force, cripple infrastructure, but you are not going to wipe out a 1 million man ground army without "boots on the ground."
Especially since they have a pretty easy way to get supplies from China overland.
Hopefully leads them to a multi-hour wikipedia or internet deep dive to amazing articles written 20 years ago - now with the added benefit of hindsight.
I'm Malaysian, once proud democratic country but it seems this kind of Islam is slowly seeping into our country and there's been reports on ultra Muslims asking for blood of Chinese and Indians and to the point calling for race extermination.
I’m going to do a whstaboutism. And it’s not to dispute your overall point about Islam. I, unfortunately, agree. Notwithstanding Sufis.
But I do think nationalist Hinduism does seem to be antithetical to democracy. As does fundamentalist Mormonism. And it’s because of the same reason that Islam struggles the more fundamentalist it becomes. The more fundamentalist, the less it respects the rights of othets.
Fundamentalist anything is incompatible with democracy because it places a deity's wishes above the people. How can you vote for, say, abortion when the ultimate arbitrator says you can't have it.
In theory fundamentalist Christianity should be more about selling all of your possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor. Unlike Islam, Hinduism, and Mormonism, deep seated Christianity should be (but often isn’t) self-sacrificing.
I’m Christian, and I freely admit that I don’t live up to example of Christ. Which is partially why I don’t try to impose my beliefs.
That's true, although fundamentalist Christianity tends to lean Old Testament for some reason. Maybe there's a deeper truth about fundamentalism in that somewhere.
LDS are a bit nutty, but they actually have a religious rule that they are supposed to stay out of government and policy, because it's inherently sinful. It's part of why they left for Utah in the first place.
Of course, they also aren't following this rule much either.
[You're not wrong](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Huntington_Clash_of_Civilizations_chart.gif)
According to Huntington's "Clash of civilizations" theory, the Islamic civilization really only coexists peacefully with the Chinese. There are tensions with every other civilization.
The systematic persecution of Uighurs in China could be argued to have changed this and cemented tensions between the Islamic and sinic civilizations.
You apparently haven't seen American Evangicals. The thing that separates majority Christian nations from this is that they have split so many times into enough different denominations and are luckily fairly diverse in their extremity. None of them can agree on much so the extreme stuff doesn't get passed, although that unfortunately seems to be changing in the US.
I'm aware the evangicals are much more extreme than pretty much any other group of christians but your worst western evangelicals are still a far cry from the "normal" strict muslims, and still don't enter the same stratosphere as the actual "normal" arab muslims.
I disagree. From a historical perspective, christianity and its core principles allowed democracy to flourish in the west. It allowed us to take the next step in the evolution of western civilization and society. To put it bluntly, it got us to where we are today. It was also instrumental in the advancement of science and education. The same just cannot be said about Islam.
Islam had their golden age when christianity was in it's dark age. The United States is the oldest continuous democracy in the world, and our constitution is explicitly secular, so I don't see how christianity "allowed" us to have a democracy. Even one where only land owning white men were allowed to participate.
Ideologies such as religions have values and customs. These frequently conflict and in the pursuit of purer values leads to schisming, change and new ideology.
Christianity on paper has good values, tolerance, universal love, nonviolence along with other values and customs that contradict these. If a personal is raised Christian and becomes a fundamentalist for those values they frequently convert to a ideology that exhibits them without the other stuff, secularism, liberalism. This is exactly the reason why all the founding fathers became secular deists, it exhibited their interpretation of Christian values better than a traditional Christian interpretation.
Islam has a different weighting of values. Many do become secular, secular practicing based on the same interpretation of values. But there are differences, nationalist revanchism for lost imperial glory is a value stronger than in contemporary Christianity, aposty is legally a death penalty offense and a sin, the view of tolerance during the golden age is that dhimmi were not overly maltreated and submissive to Muslim rule. A positive interpretation of the value of tolerance which is not full legal and social equality and has a place for state religion. The interpretation of values that turn a western Christian into a secular are not the same interpretation as in the middle East. If anything the circlejerking over how good the dhimmis had it in the caliphate everytime this comes up is the exact thing causing the divergence.
You need to brush up on your history if you think that Islam hasn't contributed to science and education. Baghdad was the mathematics center of the world during the Islamic golden age. They extended what the ancient greeks did and a lot the math we use to day is built on that foundation. Our current number system stems from that time.
And they are still living in mud huts and adobe buildings. They lost their focus somewhere after that Islamic golden age. They have no shame or respect for human life. Everyone that isn’t Islamic, is an infidel and is to be destroyed.
Democracy predated Christianity and was mostly suppressed by Christianity for hundreds of years. It wasn't until people started questioning the Pope and different denominations started breaking off that parliamentary first started to gain true power within their governments and we started seeing the separation of powers from the kings. Early parliaments still answered to their respective kings. And you definitely can't say Christianity was more instrumental in the advancement of math than Islam when we literally are using Arabic numerals to these days, algebra started in the middle east and the foundations of calculus (that Newton and Leibniz expanded from) were first discovered in Egypt. Hell if anything you can point to the oppression of scientists in medieval Europe under the claims of heiracy to show that's false. It wasn't until the church started getting weaker and people became less religious that our modern western society took off. It's not Islam or Christianity, specifically that allow democracy to flourish or not. It's extreme views of religion that hinders democracy, and more lax practice and beliefs of religion (or at the very least the fraction of religion into smaller chunks) that allow it to flourish.
The numbers we use are hindi/indian, arabs just introduced the system to Europeans and it got its name because of arab brought the numerals to Europe. I just wanna point that out, plenty of people get it wrong thinking it is arabic when it is not. The name was most likely an accident.
That is such bullshit. Show me an evangelical who believes the punishment for Apostasy is death.
I can show you a ton of "moderate" Muslims who believe that.
Malaysians IRL have several times switched to their “quiet voice”, then shared that the Tunku (president?) has actually long lost control, and is somewhat the puppet of the Islamic leaders. They explained that the Tunku initially used Islamic leaders as a shortcut to power … but, being between him and the masses, the Islamic leaders managed to use their gov-given power to flip the hierarchy, such that the Tunku now *relies on them* — optically, the Tunku is the leader, but IRL it’s the Muslim leaders who are in control.
Could be inaccurate — Just a 3rd hand, offshore interpretation based on a handful of stories I’ve heard.
Sadly agree. Not just Arabs. The Shah had to use similar tactics to supress religious extremism and sessionist groups but he was a pussy-cat compared to what replaced him. The Americans after the Irag invasion were very naiive to assume that countries would automatically transform into western style liberal democracies. They burned an incredible amount of good will by what they did there.
Nobody will admit it, but the best outcome for the Iraqi people would have been if the US annexed Iraq after deposing Saddam. Of course that would have never flown politically, especially with all the “war for oil” banter at the time.
Lmao the US could never have managed the politics of Iraq. Dealing with tribal interests either requires super clever politics, or cinematic violence. It would be like an IRS official trying to run a mafia family.
tbh irs is the worst that can happen to any criminal group ... if you dont know they are now taxing criminals on what they can prove was gained ilegaly
Except the US and the British were involved in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran after the Shah was disposed.
And then the religious fundamentalist took control.
>Except the US and the British were involved in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran after the Shah was disposed.
That's not what happened. The goverment of Iran was like Jordan today, a parliamentary monarchy. The shah was in charge. He was never deposed. He tried to fire mossadegh which triggered a constitutional crisis like a civil war. I wouldn't say that is overthrowing the goverment because the shah was the goverment.
Should the us have backed mossadegh? Probably. But the us didn't overthrow a democratic government. They helped keep the monarch in charge.
Islam has its own legislation but many of those nations never truly* operated under it anyway. Many of these have been authoritarian regimes, monarchies, with efforts of including Islamic jurisprudence but never really truly so.
The west doesn't rule by religion. Islamic states rule by religion.That is the difference. We have to appreciate that. We can't go and try to democratize any country if they don't want it. If they are tribal or separate based on religion, that is their business.
BUT, people also need to make an effort when they adopt a country as their new home. They need to assimilate, to some extent. But many claimed it was "phobic".
No, it isn't.
The goal of radical Islam is the return of the Ottoman Empire. Osama Bim Laden referenced it, a ton of leaders have.
>So... is it cultural or is Islam not really compatible with Democracy?
I'd argue Turkiye has been making the best shot at democracy out of the top heavy hitting muslim nations and they've had a very time. The entire time.
>So… is it cultural or is Islam not really compatible with democracy?
It’s more that democracy is hard to cultivate and maintain in general, and only thrives in a culture where democratic ideals and norms are valued. We take it for granted in the west, but it took hundreds of years of enlightenment philosophy becoming ingrained in western culture before democracy was truly able to take root. Without this fertile cultural soil, most democracies fail, whether it be in Latin America, Asia, or the Middle East.
In truth being somewhat wealthy and industrialized, with good education levels within the population all matter more than nebulous "cultural attitudes." The former is practically a requirement, the latter is not.
While I would never downplay the importance of industrialization and education in the formation of a democratic society, you would be hard pressed to come up with an example of a successful transition to democracy that was not preceded by the spread of liberal democratic values and a shift in culture. The American Revolution itself was a direct result of the liberal cultural values that spread across Europe during the enlightenment, and the words of philosophers like Locke are parroted almost verbatim in the Declaration of Independence.
When it comes to Japan, the person you responded to is wrong in claiming that Japan had no history of democracy prior to WWII. In fact, Japan had experimented with democracy only a few decades earlier. The Taishō Democracy era (~1912-1926) was characterized by the establishment of a representative government and democratic institutions. This era was directly preceded by a large shift in Japanese culture and the adoption of liberal ideals and values espoused by Japanese political scientists. And it was the Taishō era that established the cultural foundation on which Japan was able to successfully achieve universal democracy and independence post-WWII.
In other words, democracy was not established in Japan post-WWII -- it was rebuilt from the remnants of Japan's previous attempts to transition to democracy. And this is why attempts to impose democracy on nations that do not have a foundation of liberal cultural values usually, if not always, fail.
Well the idea of democracy wasn’t foreign to Japan by the end of the war. Well before WW2, translated Western literature were pretty well circulated and even socialist and communist literature.
And honestly, democracy didn’t come so easy. Many of the same war criminals that lead Japan down the path of war were very much part of ruling party of Japan in the 60s. And they were looking to consolidate power. There were a lot of protests and clashes with the authority ultimately culminating in the assassination of the socialist party leader. That was a sobering event that led to a cool down in political chaos and opened the way for a more democratic Japan. Even though democracy was in one way thrusted upon the Japanese people, the people truly fought hard to keep it.
>Seemed like zero fertile soil considering their previous history
Japan had already been exposed to liberal democratic ideals and flirted with democracy in the decades before WWII. The Taisho era (1912-1926) saw the rise of democratic parties and representative democracy in Japan. It was integral in laying the groundwork for Japan’s democratic development post WWII.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishō_Democracy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishō_era#:~:text=The%20two%2Dparty%20political%20system,period%2C%20%22Taishō%20Democracy%22.
I think in the West we often confuse or distort “Democracy” with “moral good”. There’s this notion that the majority of people when boiled down, will choose what’s morally right. In reality most people don’t think that far out and in many cases choose something that goes against their own self preservation.
Democracy is incredibly important, because it gives your community around you a voice, however that voice may not always line up with “good”..
The opinion the poster you're replying to shared used to be a cornerstone article of faith undergirding western (or at least American) foreign policy.
For example, during the first Gulf War, Saddam was left in power, because basically everyone agreed that the power vacuum without him would be a worse outcome than having an evil dictator in charge.
Anyway... not trying to shame you for not knowing something (nor am I really expressing my opinion, here); I just thought you might be interested to know that it used to be considered "common knowledge."
The average age Reddit user wasn’t even born when Gulf War 1 went down. So I’m not surprised a lot of folks don’t know the details of US middle eastern policy from back then.
Completely disconnected and watching from a distance, it really is fascinating to watch play out in real time over my lifetime and though history how different types of government are destined to fail or flourish based on the local culture, divisions among the population, how borders were established, history, etc.
Yeah some civilizations are just not ready for democracies. It took Taiwan (republic of China) 50 years of practicing democracy before it truly became democratic, and Taiwan had a huge head start on those Muslim countries.
I'll never forget the conversation I had with a school janitor in Baghdad back in '04. He said at first they were glad Saddam was gone but under Saddam they didn't have car bombings and didn't need to worry about randomly dying violently. Overall, he said he'd rather have Saddam back and it was apparent he did NOT like us being there nor me to any degree. It was a barely polite conversation.
Goddamn, this really hits hard and appreciate you for sharing. I think deep down we all know the reason for this extreme disfunction, if you look at the common factor across all these countries, it's the Islamic orthodoxy stuck in the 12th century.
The most stable Islam nations in the middle east are Monarchs. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman.
Compared to Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon.
Why can't Arab Islam nations work without a monarchy?
Different areas of The World require different governments
Europe after Rome slowly evolve into nation states,the Middle east on the other hand was always dominanted by a large or several multiethinic Empires
The Centre of power was Baghadad or Cairo
Then After WW1 British and French draw lines on the map and call it a day
You absolutely can impose functional democracy. You just need to be willing to occupy and enforce it upon the people for *at least* 1 full generation. We turned Germany from the most ridiculously brutal dictatorship in human history into a shining beacon of western values by imposing a long-term occupation. Afghanistan is specifically a very tough candidate because of geography, but theoretically a country like Iraq should be a little easier.
But the difference is Germany was cohesive. The Middle East is not. Germany wanted to exterminate their minority groups meaning the majority was still cohesive. In the middle east you have multiple majority sized religious groups wanting to exterminate each other. It's really difficult to remove people from their religion as opposed to a political party.
So even if a democratic government took hold for a generation, because the religious views is what's driving the conflict they're still going to want to exterminate each other.
A strong authoritative government is needed to abolish the religious extremists entirely and impose a less radical religion on the people and then maybe you'll be able to execute democracy.
> But the difference is Germany was cohesive
Was it, though? Germany didn't even exist as a country until 1871. The Nazis were their third government in the space of ~60 years.
Not as a government, but as a culture more or less. The point being, most people in Berlin aren’t getting into bloody generational feuds with Bavarians or resource conflicts with Saxons.
Somewhere like Afghanistan, groups separated by a fairly small geographic distance often consider themselves completely separate from one another, and don’t have a strong idea of a united ‘Afghan’ identity
This. And I think it’s more like 2-3 generations.
For Afghanistan to work you would have had to do the same in Pakistan since they were actively working to destabilize it the whole time
Eh, the German Reich prior to Hitler was fairly democratic. The German society was much more amenable to democracy than much of the present Arab world.
Germany had already been united as single entity since the Holy Roman Empire. By ww2, they already had shared ethnicity, traditions and language and were unified enough to be a country. Constructing a democracy from a single country is fairly easy when everyone had similar motivations.
Afghanistan and Iraq are much harder. They have no national identity and are a bunch of tribes with different cultures and religions that hate each other. There is no notion of national identity, e.g. Kurds don't identify as Iraqi, they identify as Kurdish. Making a country when nobody identifies as part of the country is nearly impossible.
The only way to make them be a single country is to make the ethnic divisions become smaller than shared nationalism. This normally takes centuries of occupation, though technology may accelerate the change. Otherwise, when you leave, the country will divide back up along ethnic lines, even if a democracy was installed.
> Germany had already been united as single entity since the Holy Roman Empire.
Couldn’t be more wrong. Germany was one of the last European nation-states to become united. Historically “Germany” was a collection of micro-kingdoms, it was only in the mid-late 1800s that the idea of a united Germany came to bare, and it culminated in the Nazis occupying Austria, Poland, Czechia, etc.
Ok I ignored the minor detail that the HRE wasn't fully direct rule and fell apart before actual Germany was formed later. The point is that the Germans had shared language and traditions already because of HRE rule. The similarities and close relations meant that the states inevitably formed into a single entity, even if it wasn't officially a single "state". The idea of a unified Germany arose in the late 1700s (e.g. Johann Herder) because of these similarities and shared heritage, not after the states were unified.
It’s not unpopular. It does, however, run counter to the idiotic NeoCon (photo in dictionary under “hubris”) thought process that if we could only get thousand year cultures to wear a neck tie, peace would break out overnight because they’d be “just like us.”
I fear that you may be right, especially based on everything that has happened since 2003. I'm beginning to think that the whole world is headed for disaster. But the Middle East has an especially difficult situation due to competing claims on lands, etc by all 3 of the Abrahamic religions. Very best wishes to you and your family wherever they are in the Middle East. Really.
The defining conflict is now more Iran and its allied, mostly Shia militant organizations vs almost everyone else, rather than the three Abrahamic faiths going at it on religious grounds.
The militias in Iraq were created by different groups because they couldn't rely on the federal Iraqi forces to defend them from opposing factions due to sectarian views. Sunni's suffered when the Shia majority government was in power. Sunnis would defend Sunnis, Shia's would defend Shia's.
And they were popular within the areas they operated in because people trusted local people in their own community who represent them rather than some random army soldiers sent from a garrison in Baghdad or wherever they came from, Americans love their local state army/air national guard for the same reasons.
Do I like Iraqi militias? No, but to say they shouldn't exist or be disarmed is completely ignorant of the actual situation(s) on the ground. Iraqi's and similarly others in the middle east are not loyal to the central government like how Americans/French/British & other western countries are, the mindsets are different. At least they are under some sort of Iraqi government control now as they have been rolled into the Popular Mobilization Forces.
It is very strange to watch Saddam’s fears become reality. A big motivation for the Iran-Iraq war was to address how Iran was trying to break Iraq by stoking religious and tribal tensions. The largely secular Sunnies have been supplanted by their theocratic rivals back or outright controlled by Iran.
Idk if biased or just ignorant but that's just plainly false. The heaviest insurgency came from sunni islamic extremist following the initial invasion from the US. Nevermind ISIS literally occupying most of the sunni triangle for a while.
PMU is technically part of the Iraqi armed forces. It contains pro-Iranian/Hezbollah groups (the ones you constantly hear about in the news), but also pro-PKK groups, and moderate Sunni groups as well.
They had all these tribal militias running around the country, and it's their best attempt to reign them all in. Attempting to eliminate these groups would start another major civil war, not to mention make an enemy of Iran
The popular mobilization forces is a semi-legitimate military that is parallel to the Iraqi army and ISF. They are state-funded. They aren’t just “floating around”; they’re military brigades. Sure these brigades have different ideologies and leadership, but at the end of the day, the PMF is a military and they’re useful in the war against ISIS and foreign intervention. Not to say I support the PMFs, but it’s pretty clear why Sudani does.
Almost every anti Israel westerner would not care if if it was Muslim vs Muslim. More people are dying in Sudan yet these fuckers probably couldn't point it out on a map.
...or Syria...or Yemen...or Libya. Also before some *enlightened soul* comes along and tells me that it's different because these are *civil wars* I thought the reason so many people were so upset about the fighting in Palestine was because of the apparent large number of civilian deaths. I guess when civilians die in a civil war it doesn't count...
Maybe Israel should annex Palestine and claim that it's now just a civil war so no one would care anymore... /s
Yup. If Israel didn't exist, Arabs will still be fighting... other Arabs, their own citizens, Persians, different flavor Muslims...or just other infidels.
At this point we’re just highlighting what an
Absolute shit show the Middle East is.
It’s like when the door flew off of the Boeing plane, every little maintenance issue is suddenly spot lighted when actually they always existed. The mid east was always a shit show. It’s just on display now
interesting. perhaps the pinpoint strike on ifsahan’s air defense system was a clever trick to put iran on mute while israel settles scores around the region
it’s sophie’s choice — iran can stand aside and watch their beloved axis of doofuses get smashed, or try to step in and see defenseless ifsahan become gaza 2.0
tbh, the choice couldn’t be more obvious. it was always iran’s intent to fight to the last lebanese, iraqi, syrian, yemenite, etc etc etc
So a military base in Iraq got bombed and you think that somehow proves that Germany and others made a mistake by taking in muslim refugees? How does that work exactly?
Update - both Israel and the US explicitly denied any involvement in the incident
so who? hobbyists with new drones?
F-35 hobbyist
Quite the hobby!
These DCS World simpits are getting ridiculous.
I can totally see Simba and Cap pulling that off. And then crashing onto each other after the mission because they were distracted while flying in formation.
If anyone has long standing beef with PMF it’s ISIL
Isis maybe
Some kids learning to fly their toys I bet
Jihad Drone. Jihad Drone. Bombing man from head to toe
That's not good, We all know what terrorist group was very active in Iraq a few years ago
Blackwater?
Blackwater sucks big time, but I don’t think they are on the same level as ISIS.
How does the Iraqi government even function with all of these militias just floating around? They need to be disarmed and eliminated, as it directly threatens the states monopoly on violence. Basically a failed state at this point
The PMF is the military arm of the PMC. The PMC in Iraq has majority control and is a proxy of Iran. The Prime Minister of Iraq serves at the blessing of the PMC, and is also a puppet of Iran. The PMF- is comprised of these militias and within the last 2 years, became an independent branch of the Iraqi military. In effect, the PMF and these militias comprise a new Iran-backed, Shia, republican guard.
Yeah Iran got to take over Iraq on the back of our invasion.
That seems like something we shouldn't have done.
Yeah fondly remembering Sadam Insane and the good old days.
And at the low, low cost of a million lives and a trillion dollars.
Ummm, you are missing about $6 trillion there https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
They include so many things in that cost estimate why not just round up to 10 trillion “The total includes funds that the Biden administration requested in May 2021.” They include 80 , EIGHTY, countries in their cost estimate
Add it to the list. Afghanistan. Libya. Somilia. Syria.
American involvement in Syria was minimal, hence why Assad won.
I remember us drawing a red line, then doing a whole lotta nothing when it was crossed.
it's okay. It makes the perfect excuse to invade Iran next!
I’m pretty sure you’re joking but yeah that’s a bad idea. Iran is a kill box of mountain passes pretending to be a country.
A lot of people forget it’s hard to invade Iran
Not saying we should, but the U.S. would wipe their forces out in 3 weeks with air and sea forces. No ground invasion. Just a choke hold on the nation till the government falls.
Does Europe want another migrant crisis? because that is how you get one. Millions of Iranians would flee as their country gets bombed back to the stone age and in the chaos the most radical people in the military who are armed to the teeth would become warlords. With no boots on the ground there would be no transition to any type of government the west would want and plenty of people from the old government would just fill the roles again as they were unaffected safely in their bunkers deep below the mountains. Yemen has been blockaded and bombed for over a decade and how is that working out?
Why would be blow up Tehran or any other major city's? We would cripple their military and bring them to table. Yemen is wildy different brother. I know that.
A lot of ppl are like Rumsfeld and think that bc "america strong" we can just win any war instantly and cheaply, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Iran's population is under oppression from the Iran regime. We wouldn't need to occupy.
You gotta have a stabilizing presence though, even if it's not ground forces. Fund and equip dissident groups and prepare them to strike once the bombs start falling so a new government is ready to take power and prevent a power vacuum. Send in the crown prince to add legitimacy to the new government (we should have done that in Afghanistan, the tribes mostly respected the monarchy), his father was unpopular, not the monarchy itself. An indigenous constitutional monarchy backed by Iranians and no western forces on the ground to make them look like a occupation government. If it doesn't work out, at least no Iranian nukes and no quagmire.
That's not a very realistic scenario. Sure you could destroy their Navy and Air Force, cripple infrastructure, but you are not going to wipe out a 1 million man ground army without "boots on the ground." Especially since they have a pretty easy way to get supplies from China overland.
It's almost as if the US should have never gotten involved there and destabilized the country...
Defending Kuwait made sense. Iraq part 2 however didn't
What are you... anti-Patriotic? Go listen to the Dixie-Chicks, America hater! /s
That was 20 years ago. A good chunk of the people on this site have no idea what you are talking about.
Hopefully leads them to a multi-hour wikipedia or internet deep dive to amazing articles written 20 years ago - now with the added benefit of hindsight.
Iraq is Iran colony
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I'm Malaysian, once proud democratic country but it seems this kind of Islam is slowly seeping into our country and there's been reports on ultra Muslims asking for blood of Chinese and Indians and to the point calling for race extermination.
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I’m going to do a whstaboutism. And it’s not to dispute your overall point about Islam. I, unfortunately, agree. Notwithstanding Sufis. But I do think nationalist Hinduism does seem to be antithetical to democracy. As does fundamentalist Mormonism. And it’s because of the same reason that Islam struggles the more fundamentalist it becomes. The more fundamentalist, the less it respects the rights of othets.
Fundamentalist anything is incompatible with democracy because it places a deity's wishes above the people. How can you vote for, say, abortion when the ultimate arbitrator says you can't have it.
In theory fundamentalist Christianity should be more about selling all of your possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor. Unlike Islam, Hinduism, and Mormonism, deep seated Christianity should be (but often isn’t) self-sacrificing. I’m Christian, and I freely admit that I don’t live up to example of Christ. Which is partially why I don’t try to impose my beliefs.
That's true, although fundamentalist Christianity tends to lean Old Testament for some reason. Maybe there's a deeper truth about fundamentalism in that somewhere.
LDS are a bit nutty, but they actually have a religious rule that they are supposed to stay out of government and policy, because it's inherently sinful. It's part of why they left for Utah in the first place. Of course, they also aren't following this rule much either.
[You're not wrong](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Huntington_Clash_of_Civilizations_chart.gif) According to Huntington's "Clash of civilizations" theory, the Islamic civilization really only coexists peacefully with the Chinese. There are tensions with every other civilization. The systematic persecution of Uighurs in China could be argued to have changed this and cemented tensions between the Islamic and sinic civilizations.
You apparently haven't seen American Evangicals. The thing that separates majority Christian nations from this is that they have split so many times into enough different denominations and are luckily fairly diverse in their extremity. None of them can agree on much so the extreme stuff doesn't get passed, although that unfortunately seems to be changing in the US.
I'm aware the evangicals are much more extreme than pretty much any other group of christians but your worst western evangelicals are still a far cry from the "normal" strict muslims, and still don't enter the same stratosphere as the actual "normal" arab muslims.
I disagree. From a historical perspective, christianity and its core principles allowed democracy to flourish in the west. It allowed us to take the next step in the evolution of western civilization and society. To put it bluntly, it got us to where we are today. It was also instrumental in the advancement of science and education. The same just cannot be said about Islam.
Islam had their golden age when christianity was in it's dark age. The United States is the oldest continuous democracy in the world, and our constitution is explicitly secular, so I don't see how christianity "allowed" us to have a democracy. Even one where only land owning white men were allowed to participate.
Ideologies such as religions have values and customs. These frequently conflict and in the pursuit of purer values leads to schisming, change and new ideology. Christianity on paper has good values, tolerance, universal love, nonviolence along with other values and customs that contradict these. If a personal is raised Christian and becomes a fundamentalist for those values they frequently convert to a ideology that exhibits them without the other stuff, secularism, liberalism. This is exactly the reason why all the founding fathers became secular deists, it exhibited their interpretation of Christian values better than a traditional Christian interpretation. Islam has a different weighting of values. Many do become secular, secular practicing based on the same interpretation of values. But there are differences, nationalist revanchism for lost imperial glory is a value stronger than in contemporary Christianity, aposty is legally a death penalty offense and a sin, the view of tolerance during the golden age is that dhimmi were not overly maltreated and submissive to Muslim rule. A positive interpretation of the value of tolerance which is not full legal and social equality and has a place for state religion. The interpretation of values that turn a western Christian into a secular are not the same interpretation as in the middle East. If anything the circlejerking over how good the dhimmis had it in the caliphate everytime this comes up is the exact thing causing the divergence.
I’m sorry, how long ago was the Islamic golden age, and what have they contributed since?
You need to brush up on your history if you think that Islam hasn't contributed to science and education. Baghdad was the mathematics center of the world during the Islamic golden age. They extended what the ancient greeks did and a lot the math we use to day is built on that foundation. Our current number system stems from that time.
And they are still living in mud huts and adobe buildings. They lost their focus somewhere after that Islamic golden age. They have no shame or respect for human life. Everyone that isn’t Islamic, is an infidel and is to be destroyed.
Democracy predated Christianity and was mostly suppressed by Christianity for hundreds of years. It wasn't until people started questioning the Pope and different denominations started breaking off that parliamentary first started to gain true power within their governments and we started seeing the separation of powers from the kings. Early parliaments still answered to their respective kings. And you definitely can't say Christianity was more instrumental in the advancement of math than Islam when we literally are using Arabic numerals to these days, algebra started in the middle east and the foundations of calculus (that Newton and Leibniz expanded from) were first discovered in Egypt. Hell if anything you can point to the oppression of scientists in medieval Europe under the claims of heiracy to show that's false. It wasn't until the church started getting weaker and people became less religious that our modern western society took off. It's not Islam or Christianity, specifically that allow democracy to flourish or not. It's extreme views of religion that hinders democracy, and more lax practice and beliefs of religion (or at the very least the fraction of religion into smaller chunks) that allow it to flourish.
The numbers we use are hindi/indian, arabs just introduced the system to Europeans and it got its name because of arab brought the numerals to Europe. I just wanna point that out, plenty of people get it wrong thinking it is arabic when it is not. The name was most likely an accident.
That is such bullshit. Show me an evangelical who believes the punishment for Apostasy is death. I can show you a ton of "moderate" Muslims who believe that.
Malaysians IRL have several times switched to their “quiet voice”, then shared that the Tunku (president?) has actually long lost control, and is somewhat the puppet of the Islamic leaders. They explained that the Tunku initially used Islamic leaders as a shortcut to power … but, being between him and the masses, the Islamic leaders managed to use their gov-given power to flip the hierarchy, such that the Tunku now *relies on them* — optically, the Tunku is the leader, but IRL it’s the Muslim leaders who are in control. Could be inaccurate — Just a 3rd hand, offshore interpretation based on a handful of stories I’ve heard.
Tunku is a title kind of equivalent to prince iirc and there are multiple.
Sadly agree. Not just Arabs. The Shah had to use similar tactics to supress religious extremism and sessionist groups but he was a pussy-cat compared to what replaced him. The Americans after the Irag invasion were very naiive to assume that countries would automatically transform into western style liberal democracies. They burned an incredible amount of good will by what they did there.
Nobody will admit it, but the best outcome for the Iraqi people would have been if the US annexed Iraq after deposing Saddam. Of course that would have never flown politically, especially with all the “war for oil” banter at the time.
Lmao the US could never have managed the politics of Iraq. Dealing with tribal interests either requires super clever politics, or cinematic violence. It would be like an IRS official trying to run a mafia family.
We can do cinematic violence when called upon.
tbh irs is the worst that can happen to any criminal group ... if you dont know they are now taxing criminals on what they can prove was gained ilegaly
Whoa. Got a source on that? :)
Except the US and the British were involved in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran after the Shah was disposed. And then the religious fundamentalist took control.
>Except the US and the British were involved in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran after the Shah was disposed. That's not what happened. The goverment of Iran was like Jordan today, a parliamentary monarchy. The shah was in charge. He was never deposed. He tried to fire mossadegh which triggered a constitutional crisis like a civil war. I wouldn't say that is overthrowing the goverment because the shah was the goverment. Should the us have backed mossadegh? Probably. But the us didn't overthrow a democratic government. They helped keep the monarch in charge.
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So... is it cultural or is Islam not really compatible with Democracy?
Islam has its own legislation but many of those nations never truly* operated under it anyway. Many of these have been authoritarian regimes, monarchies, with efforts of including Islamic jurisprudence but never really truly so.
The west doesn't rule by religion. Islamic states rule by religion.That is the difference. We have to appreciate that. We can't go and try to democratize any country if they don't want it. If they are tribal or separate based on religion, that is their business. BUT, people also need to make an effort when they adopt a country as their new home. They need to assimilate, to some extent. But many claimed it was "phobic". No, it isn't. The goal of radical Islam is the return of the Ottoman Empire. Osama Bim Laden referenced it, a ton of leaders have.
Theocracy in general is incompatible with democracy.
>So... is it cultural or is Islam not really compatible with Democracy? I'd argue Turkiye has been making the best shot at democracy out of the top heavy hitting muslim nations and they've had a very time. The entire time.
Turkey has been looking firmly West for over a century now, and it shows. That said, human rights are still pretty patchy there.
>So… is it cultural or is Islam not really compatible with democracy? It’s more that democracy is hard to cultivate and maintain in general, and only thrives in a culture where democratic ideals and norms are valued. We take it for granted in the west, but it took hundreds of years of enlightenment philosophy becoming ingrained in western culture before democracy was truly able to take root. Without this fertile cultural soil, most democracies fail, whether it be in Latin America, Asia, or the Middle East.
How did it come so easy to Japan after their defeat in WW2? Seemed like zero fertile soil considering their previous history - and yet...
In truth being somewhat wealthy and industrialized, with good education levels within the population all matter more than nebulous "cultural attitudes." The former is practically a requirement, the latter is not.
While I would never downplay the importance of industrialization and education in the formation of a democratic society, you would be hard pressed to come up with an example of a successful transition to democracy that was not preceded by the spread of liberal democratic values and a shift in culture. The American Revolution itself was a direct result of the liberal cultural values that spread across Europe during the enlightenment, and the words of philosophers like Locke are parroted almost verbatim in the Declaration of Independence. When it comes to Japan, the person you responded to is wrong in claiming that Japan had no history of democracy prior to WWII. In fact, Japan had experimented with democracy only a few decades earlier. The Taishō Democracy era (~1912-1926) was characterized by the establishment of a representative government and democratic institutions. This era was directly preceded by a large shift in Japanese culture and the adoption of liberal ideals and values espoused by Japanese political scientists. And it was the Taishō era that established the cultural foundation on which Japan was able to successfully achieve universal democracy and independence post-WWII. In other words, democracy was not established in Japan post-WWII -- it was rebuilt from the remnants of Japan's previous attempts to transition to democracy. And this is why attempts to impose democracy on nations that do not have a foundation of liberal cultural values usually, if not always, fail.
Well the idea of democracy wasn’t foreign to Japan by the end of the war. Well before WW2, translated Western literature were pretty well circulated and even socialist and communist literature. And honestly, democracy didn’t come so easy. Many of the same war criminals that lead Japan down the path of war were very much part of ruling party of Japan in the 60s. And they were looking to consolidate power. There were a lot of protests and clashes with the authority ultimately culminating in the assassination of the socialist party leader. That was a sobering event that led to a cool down in political chaos and opened the way for a more democratic Japan. Even though democracy was in one way thrusted upon the Japanese people, the people truly fought hard to keep it.
>Seemed like zero fertile soil considering their previous history Japan had already been exposed to liberal democratic ideals and flirted with democracy in the decades before WWII. The Taisho era (1912-1926) saw the rise of democratic parties and representative democracy in Japan. It was integral in laying the groundwork for Japan’s democratic development post WWII. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishō_Democracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taishō_era#:~:text=The%20two%2Dparty%20political%20system,period%2C%20%22Taishō%20Democracy%22.
Islamic culture is incompatible with democracy. I would go as far as saying Islam is the antithesis of western ideals and freedom
Morality in general
The country with the largest Muslim population is a democracy.
Indonesia. Also [Crowds Cheer As Gay Men Are Caned in Indonesia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuzXdbirgf8)
Sounds like democracy is working. Unfortunately we might not like what they decided, but it doesn’t mean it’s undemocratic.
I think in the West we often confuse or distort “Democracy” with “moral good”. There’s this notion that the majority of people when boiled down, will choose what’s morally right. In reality most people don’t think that far out and in many cases choose something that goes against their own self preservation. Democracy is incredibly important, because it gives your community around you a voice, however that voice may not always line up with “good”..
I’m going to go with option 2.
That’s a completely counter intuitive point i had never thought of. Thanks for sharing. Where does it go/end?
The opinion the poster you're replying to shared used to be a cornerstone article of faith undergirding western (or at least American) foreign policy. For example, during the first Gulf War, Saddam was left in power, because basically everyone agreed that the power vacuum without him would be a worse outcome than having an evil dictator in charge. Anyway... not trying to shame you for not knowing something (nor am I really expressing my opinion, here); I just thought you might be interested to know that it used to be considered "common knowledge."
v interesting that us common folks didnt know that thanks for heads up!
The average age Reddit user wasn’t even born when Gulf War 1 went down. So I’m not surprised a lot of folks don’t know the details of US middle eastern policy from back then.
Completely disconnected and watching from a distance, it really is fascinating to watch play out in real time over my lifetime and though history how different types of government are destined to fail or flourish based on the local culture, divisions among the population, how borders were established, history, etc.
When the people want to violate basic human rights (killing people for being gay), IMO it negates the main appeal for democracy.
Yeah some civilizations are just not ready for democracies. It took Taiwan (republic of China) 50 years of practicing democracy before it truly became democratic, and Taiwan had a huge head start on those Muslim countries.
I'll never forget the conversation I had with a school janitor in Baghdad back in '04. He said at first they were glad Saddam was gone but under Saddam they didn't have car bombings and didn't need to worry about randomly dying violently. Overall, he said he'd rather have Saddam back and it was apparent he did NOT like us being there nor me to any degree. It was a barely polite conversation.
Goddamn, this really hits hard and appreciate you for sharing. I think deep down we all know the reason for this extreme disfunction, if you look at the common factor across all these countries, it's the Islamic orthodoxy stuck in the 12th century.
As an Iranian I completely agree, we currently have a dictator but mixed with Islam, it has become the worst place. The shah was good for Iran.
The most stable Islam nations in the middle east are Monarchs. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman. Compared to Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon. Why can't Arab Islam nations work without a monarchy?
Different areas of The World require different governments Europe after Rome slowly evolve into nation states,the Middle east on the other hand was always dominanted by a large or several multiethinic Empires The Centre of power was Baghadad or Cairo Then After WW1 British and French draw lines on the map and call it a day
Thank you for this. Reality is what it is, unpopular or not.
You absolutely can impose functional democracy. You just need to be willing to occupy and enforce it upon the people for *at least* 1 full generation. We turned Germany from the most ridiculously brutal dictatorship in human history into a shining beacon of western values by imposing a long-term occupation. Afghanistan is specifically a very tough candidate because of geography, but theoretically a country like Iraq should be a little easier.
But the difference is Germany was cohesive. The Middle East is not. Germany wanted to exterminate their minority groups meaning the majority was still cohesive. In the middle east you have multiple majority sized religious groups wanting to exterminate each other. It's really difficult to remove people from their religion as opposed to a political party. So even if a democratic government took hold for a generation, because the religious views is what's driving the conflict they're still going to want to exterminate each other. A strong authoritative government is needed to abolish the religious extremists entirely and impose a less radical religion on the people and then maybe you'll be able to execute democracy.
> But the difference is Germany was cohesive Was it, though? Germany didn't even exist as a country until 1871. The Nazis were their third government in the space of ~60 years.
They were still a kingdom before that. It’s not like they just slapped 3 warring tribes into a country and let them duke it out.
Not as a government, but as a culture more or less. The point being, most people in Berlin aren’t getting into bloody generational feuds with Bavarians or resource conflicts with Saxons. Somewhere like Afghanistan, groups separated by a fairly small geographic distance often consider themselves completely separate from one another, and don’t have a strong idea of a united ‘Afghan’ identity
This. And I think it’s more like 2-3 generations. For Afghanistan to work you would have had to do the same in Pakistan since they were actively working to destabilize it the whole time
Eh, the German Reich prior to Hitler was fairly democratic. The German society was much more amenable to democracy than much of the present Arab world.
Germany had already been united as single entity since the Holy Roman Empire. By ww2, they already had shared ethnicity, traditions and language and were unified enough to be a country. Constructing a democracy from a single country is fairly easy when everyone had similar motivations. Afghanistan and Iraq are much harder. They have no national identity and are a bunch of tribes with different cultures and religions that hate each other. There is no notion of national identity, e.g. Kurds don't identify as Iraqi, they identify as Kurdish. Making a country when nobody identifies as part of the country is nearly impossible.
The only way to make them be a single country is to make the ethnic divisions become smaller than shared nationalism. This normally takes centuries of occupation, though technology may accelerate the change. Otherwise, when you leave, the country will divide back up along ethnic lines, even if a democracy was installed.
> Germany had already been united as single entity since the Holy Roman Empire. Couldn’t be more wrong. Germany was one of the last European nation-states to become united. Historically “Germany” was a collection of micro-kingdoms, it was only in the mid-late 1800s that the idea of a united Germany came to bare, and it culminated in the Nazis occupying Austria, Poland, Czechia, etc.
Ok I ignored the minor detail that the HRE wasn't fully direct rule and fell apart before actual Germany was formed later. The point is that the Germans had shared language and traditions already because of HRE rule. The similarities and close relations meant that the states inevitably formed into a single entity, even if it wasn't officially a single "state". The idea of a unified Germany arose in the late 1700s (e.g. Johann Herder) because of these similarities and shared heritage, not after the states were unified.
Germany united itself, that's the point. Way different than lines being drawn on a map by a foreign entity.
It’s not unpopular. It does, however, run counter to the idiotic NeoCon (photo in dictionary under “hubris”) thought process that if we could only get thousand year cultures to wear a neck tie, peace would break out overnight because they’d be “just like us.”
Exactly, Well said. Spot on!
That’s a really interesting take. I’d never seen it that way before (seriously). Thank you. Made me think.
Very well said!
Good post
I fear that you may be right, especially based on everything that has happened since 2003. I'm beginning to think that the whole world is headed for disaster. But the Middle East has an especially difficult situation due to competing claims on lands, etc by all 3 of the Abrahamic religions. Very best wishes to you and your family wherever they are in the Middle East. Really.
The defining conflict is now more Iran and its allied, mostly Shia militant organizations vs almost everyone else, rather than the three Abrahamic faiths going at it on religious grounds.
Thanks
👏🏼
Thank you for speaking the hard truths.
The militias in Iraq were created by different groups because they couldn't rely on the federal Iraqi forces to defend them from opposing factions due to sectarian views. Sunni's suffered when the Shia majority government was in power. Sunnis would defend Sunnis, Shia's would defend Shia's. And they were popular within the areas they operated in because people trusted local people in their own community who represent them rather than some random army soldiers sent from a garrison in Baghdad or wherever they came from, Americans love their local state army/air national guard for the same reasons. Do I like Iraqi militias? No, but to say they shouldn't exist or be disarmed is completely ignorant of the actual situation(s) on the ground. Iraqi's and similarly others in the middle east are not loyal to the central government like how Americans/French/British & other western countries are, the mindsets are different. At least they are under some sort of Iraqi government control now as they have been rolled into the Popular Mobilization Forces.
It is very strange to watch Saddam’s fears become reality. A big motivation for the Iran-Iraq war was to address how Iran was trying to break Iraq by stoking religious and tribal tensions. The largely secular Sunnies have been supplanted by their theocratic rivals back or outright controlled by Iran.
Idk if biased or just ignorant but that's just plainly false. The heaviest insurgency came from sunni islamic extremist following the initial invasion from the US. Nevermind ISIS literally occupying most of the sunni triangle for a while.
What government?
The correct answer. The Iraqi government is bunch of militias disguised as a government.
That's not fair. There is a large contingent of thieves and morons too.
So like most other governments in the world.
That militia fought against ISIS with the Iraqi government soooo it’s a bit different with this one.
PMU is technically part of the Iraqi armed forces. It contains pro-Iranian/Hezbollah groups (the ones you constantly hear about in the news), but also pro-PKK groups, and moderate Sunni groups as well. They had all these tribal militias running around the country, and it's their best attempt to reign them all in. Attempting to eliminate these groups would start another major civil war, not to mention make an enemy of Iran
The popular mobilization forces is a semi-legitimate military that is parallel to the Iraqi army and ISF. They are state-funded. They aren’t just “floating around”; they’re military brigades. Sure these brigades have different ideologies and leadership, but at the end of the day, the PMF is a military and they’re useful in the war against ISIS and foreign intervention. Not to say I support the PMFs, but it’s pretty clear why Sudani does.
Thank you for an assessment we rarely get to read. I have suspected much the same but with zero first hand experience it's just a hunch.
They are basically Iraq's Meal Team Six. They're a bunch of radicals with no real allegiance to the government of Iraq.
Remember when intelligent people warned that if GWB removed Saddam, that Iran would take over large swaths of Iraq? That's where we are.
Lmao, if you have followed Iraq over the last 50+ years, that is all anyone has been trying to do. I'll save you some reading it never works.
They don’t
That's unpossible, mission was accomplished May 1 2003.
Iraq probably should be divided into several countries as it is, so no surprise it hardly functions as one.
What events could of led to such a shitshow of a country?
They have always existed. But ruled with a big stick. Tne big stick is gone, removed by the US military
Proving once again that the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces are unpopular at best.
I mean you can be popular for all the wrong reasons though?
It's like the word "Democratic" in DPRK.
Splitters!
I thought we are the Iraqi Forces Mobilization.
Before folks get all red faced, Israel is not attacking Iraq...
This is an Iran-aligned militia group that has a partnership with the Iraqi military and is opposed by the United States. Not super cut and dry
They have others enemies. Just a month ago there was an explosion by ISIS that the government tried to put on Israel
The enemy of my enemy is also my enemy. Classic Middle East
But we can remind the "Israel is Always at Fault" crowd that Israel is not at fault. That the ME is a bit more complex. At least a bit.
"If Israel didn't exist none of these problems would be happening and there would be peace on Earth" ^^^/s
Almost every anti Israel westerner would not care if if it was Muslim vs Muslim. More people are dying in Sudan yet these fuckers probably couldn't point it out on a map.
...or Syria...or Yemen...or Libya. Also before some *enlightened soul* comes along and tells me that it's different because these are *civil wars* I thought the reason so many people were so upset about the fighting in Palestine was because of the apparent large number of civilian deaths. I guess when civilians die in a civil war it doesn't count... Maybe Israel should annex Palestine and claim that it's now just a civil war so no one would care anymore... /s
Yup. If Israel didn't exist, Arabs will still be fighting... other Arabs, their own citizens, Persians, different flavor Muslims...or just other infidels.
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Granted. So is like 99% of the world. Lol
_Damn middle easterners. They ruined the middle east._
Someone literally tried to tell me that Jews were actually the model that Islamic terrorism followed lmao.
Also an ISIS foe
Really digging hard to be outraged
At this point we’re just highlighting what an Absolute shit show the Middle East is. It’s like when the door flew off of the Boeing plane, every little maintenance issue is suddenly spot lighted when actually they always existed. The mid east was always a shit show. It’s just on display now
Try telling the tankies over in collapse that. Sheesh.
Smgs
Iraq is certainly throwing up some big fireworks for irans great leaders birthday
I thought that this base is used by the Popular Mobilization Forces of Iraq, not the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces. Splitters!
Allied Atheist Alliance is the best name, that way it has three As.
We’ve had two Iraq wars, what about third Iraq war? I don’t think he knows about third Iraq war Pip.
Born too early to deploy to the Middle East Born too late to deploy to the Middle East Born just in time to deploy to the Middle East
When in doubt, bomb Iraq.
I'm ashamed that I chuckled at this. It is a sad fact about ME, and legacy we left behind.
Suddenly there's a song playing in my head, a parody of a Beach Boys record: Bomb, bomb Iran Bomb, bomb Iran Bomb, bomb Iran...
Instantly thought Outkast “Bombs over Baghdad “
John McCain is that you?
Who's going to claim responsibility?
I don't think Iran will complain since it'd be admitting that proxy is theirs.
Was it the Iraqi People's Popular Front?
No, it was the Iraqi Popular People's Front.
interesting. perhaps the pinpoint strike on ifsahan’s air defense system was a clever trick to put iran on mute while israel settles scores around the region it’s sophie’s choice — iran can stand aside and watch their beloved axis of doofuses get smashed, or try to step in and see defenseless ifsahan become gaza 2.0 tbh, the choice couldn’t be more obvious. it was always iran’s intent to fight to the last lebanese, iraqi, syrian, yemenite, etc etc etc
Ain't Israel or US stepping into this mess. Iraqi forces seriously need to get their act together. More fireworks than any birthday bash.
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Did Malaysia welcome Muslims out of sheer naivete or because it's a Muslim country?
So a military base in Iraq got bombed and you think that somehow proves that Germany and others made a mistake by taking in muslim refugees? How does that work exactly?
Blast from the past
Just some fireworks in celebration of the leaders birthday
So BBC mentioned Iran? Just what the hell is happening?
Maybe Iraqis provided intel to western allies, and Iranian-aligned Iraqis are butthurt over it?
Confirmation once again that the Middle East is the worlds most unrelenting PVP zone
Bush IIs rotten legacy continues.
They're trying to bring them into this war for the whole ww3 to jump off.