Iraq war will haunt west - Emma Sky

[TheCurmudgeon]

Just ordered it. Should be interesting.

[davidbfpo]

A short Slate article by Emma Sky 'How Obama Abandoned Iraq: Why the rise of ISIS and the fall of Iraq weren’t inevitable':http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...aq.single.html

She ends with:

But what happened in Iraq matters terribly to Iraqis who hoped so much for a better future—and to those of us who served there year after year. If we refuse to honestly examine what took place there, we will miss the opportunity to better understand when and how to respond to the world’s instability.

[Bill Moore]

Like others who commented on her previous writings, she is often half-right, but she can be a simplistic at times.

I had learned that violence was an extension of politics, that hatreds in this land were new not ancient, that alliances could be forged and fractured, and that friendships counted for more than flags.

This reminds me of Wolfawitz telling Congress before the war that there were was no ethnic hatred in Iraq because he saw Sunnis and Shia married to each other in Baghdad when he visited (when we were supporting Iraq with their fight against Iran). A half truth that created a perception that the regime change would be easier than more level headed people predicted. Sunnis and Shia were openly married under the protection of an oppressive government that was probably one of the most secular in the Middle East at the time. Hatred existed, but it was suppressed.

My engagements with Shia and Kurds that were influential and fairly high up would tell me in confidence that the only answer for Iraq was to have a strong Sunni in charge to keep the country together. They didn't want another mad man like Saddam, but they realized their society needed a strong, largely secular leader to suppress the religious/ethnic passions of the Shia and Kurds.

There was a long history of ethnic and religious conflict in Iraq, so while she is right that the current level and character of that hatred is new, hatred in that area is far from new. It is the ability to act on that hatred, to mobilized forces, and the rapid escalation in the conflict leading to greater hatred (because the government is part of the problem, not the solution) that is new.

As for her point that alliances could be forged and fractured, I agree, but hasn't that been true throughout history? I'm don't understand her next point that friendships counted for more than flags. If she is implying you that friendships can be formed between various individual actors below the group noise, that is true, but in what way does that count more than flags? Not clear of her intent here.

[davidbfpo]

Octavia Manea strikes again:http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...unterinsurgent

[davidbfpo]

I attended last night's Q&A with Emma Sky @ The Frontline Club, London and there is 84 mins long video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_NACJsTl9A

Her explanation of how she found her own post @ Kirkuk (a place she did not know), as a provincial government coordinator; with no briefing from the UK FCO beforehand is simply bizarre and she explains her personal mission was to say sorry for the invasion. Later she became a political adviser to a US brigade commander and much later to General Odierno. In total she spent 50 months in country, with several long breaks - usually sabbaticals at universities.

I found some of her answers to the main questioner and in the Q&A session very terse. A couple of Iraqis in the audience, now in exile, made comments.

She identified an ex-Iraqi AF general and several UK military officers in the audience, one of whom was decidedly unimpressed, MG Lamb.

Anyway worth listening to.