Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, The Great War in the Middle East
Sometimes I imagine the last 14 years of American war policy in the Greater Middle East as a set of dismal Mad Libs. An example might be: The United States has spent [your choice of multiple billions of dollars] building up [fill in name of Greater Middle Eastern country]’s army and equipping it with [range of weaponry of your choosing]. That army was recently routed by the [rebel or terrorist group of your choice] and fled, abandoning [list U.S. weaponry and equipment]. Washington has just sent in more [choose from: trainers/weaponry/equipment/
The president recently made just such an announcement about Afghanistan 14 years after the U.S. first invaded. Undoubtedly, his “legacy” would have been at stake if he had withdrawn U.S. forces from that country (as he promised to do in 2013) and the Afghan army and police into which the U.S. has sunk an estimated $65 billion had unraveled, as American officials clearly now fear might happen. This means that a baby born somewhere in the United States on September 12, 2001, who is already 14 years old, will turn 16 with America’s second Afghan War still ongoing and, given the trend in American wars in the Greater Middle East (always in, never out), might at 18 be able to join the U.S. military and continue the fight either there, in Iraq, or perhaps in Syria or elsewhere. It couldn’t be a grimmer tale, one in which, as TomDispatch regular Peter Van Buren suggests today, there is a single injunction when it comes to Washington policy: such wars can never end, even if we no longer have a clue as to why.
Van Buren has been writing a prescient series of pieces for TomDispatch under the rubric: What could possibly go wrong? The predictable answer, of course, is you name it and, increasingly, you -- that is, Washington -- should have expected it. Tom
The president recently made just such an announcement about Afghanistan 14 years after the U.S. first invaded. Undoubtedly, his “legacy” would have been at stake if he had withdrawn U.S. forces from that country (as he promised to do in 2013) and the Afghan army and police into which the U.S. has sunk an estimated $65 billion had unraveled, as American officials clearly now fear might happen. This means that a baby born somewhere in the United States on September 12, 2001, who is already 14 years old, will turn 16 with America’s second Afghan War still ongoing and, given the trend in American wars in the Greater Middle East (always in, never out), might at 18 be able to join the U.S. military and continue the fight either there, in Iraq, or perhaps in Syria or elsewhere. It couldn’t be a grimmer tale, one in which, as TomDispatch regular Peter Van Buren suggests today, there is a single injunction when it comes to Washington policy: such wars can never end, even if we no longer have a clue as to why.
Van Buren has been writing a prescient series of pieces for TomDispatch under the rubric: What could possibly go wrong? The predictable answer, of course, is you name it and, increasingly, you -- that is, Washington -- should have expected it. Tom
What If They Gave a War and Everyone Came?
What Could Possibly Go Wrong (October 2015 Edition)
What if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq in 2003? How would things be different in the Middle East today? Was Iraq, in the words of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the "worst foreign policy blunder" in American history? Let's take a big-picture tour of the Middle East and try to answer those questions. But first, a request: after each paragraph that follows, could you make sure to add the question “What could possibly go wrong?”
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