On the Cusp of the Deluge

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/on-the-cusp-of-the-deluge

On the Cusp of the Deluge
Josh Marshall – June 12, 2014, 1:21 PM EDT

You never know whether an Army is an Army until it's under fire. We're learning - not terribly surprisingly - that the Iraqi Army was not an army. Its soldiers appear to have ditched their uniforms and fled almost the moment they came under fire from an organized paramilitary. As one of my colleagues just noted, the commentary on what's unfolding is remarkably shallow, even from some of the most knowledgable and insightful journalists in the field. The simple and fundamental fact is that this is the fallout of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Any analysis that doesn't grapple with and accept that basic fact is just wrong and possibly dishonest to boot. It's not about how President Obama organized the exit from Iraq, whether he did it well or poorly. And yet, President Bush isn't president anymore. It's not his problem. It's President Obama's problem. And he has to figure out - decide on - the least worst way to deal with what's happening.

Historians and partisans can lay this on President Bush. And they should. But that doesn't mean anything in the here and now or give you - or rather us and the President - any clear guide on how to proceed now.

This was always the folly of the 'Hey, let's get rid of the tyrant Saddam' line of reasoning. He was brutal and awful. But he was a symptom rather than the cause of Iraq's problems, a nation drawn on maps in London and Paris, corralling together not just different sects and nationalities but the cockpit where many if not all of the Middle East's crossroads, invasion routes and contentions came together (see the Sykes-Picot Agreement and its elaborations for more). It was and is a pressure cooker that makes for a cockpit of instability and may only be able to be held together by ironfisted rule.

None of this is to justify Saddam's barbarities. It is simply to note that his existence was no accident.

Now we see a handful of grand trajectories colliding together.


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