The West played a crucial role handing Shi'ites the bulk of power in Iraq. The West played a crucial role supporting the Mujahadeen to overthrow the Russians in Afghanistan.
Will we end up regretting the former as much as the latter? Are both examples of a failure of strategic analysis?
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6 days ago
4 comments:
yes on both counts. tactical advantage winning over strategic intent every time. it's a shame, we went to kabul a couple of times before the Russkies invaded - a very interesting place.
The interesting thing I found in Kabul were hordes of Middle class American college students arriving there to smoke hashish, and it being offered to me on the streets by seven year-old boys.
But that was a long while ago.
Not that I'm up on my Arab terminology, but isn't comparing the Mujahiddeen and the Shi'ites a little like somebody comparing followers of David Koresh to Roman Catholics (ie, comparing an small and fanatical minority to a substantial population demographic)?
If you're referring to the democratic process in Iraq which inevitably favours the Shi'ite majority, then I'm still not sure what the problem is. Saddam's dictatorship was a true tyranny of the minority, but democracy need not be a tyranny of the majority. Countless examples around the world show that it can be done peacefully.
My comparison was selfish, from a western strategic point of view.
Because we were obsessed with fighting russia at every turn, we supported the muj who became the taliban (to simplify a little I admit) and a breeding ground, ironically, for anti-liberal-west hatred. And ossama.
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