US Forces Exit Iraq
reuters.comWhy is this article written like an op-ed, despite being Reuters?
I am not even necessarily disagreeing with it (I lean very anti-Iran and slightly geopolitically neoconservative) but the tone is not at all neutral and makes no mention of the possible downsides of troops staying in Iraq after decades.
The article summarizes interviews with various interest groups in the region. Exactly what you would expect from a news agency like Reuters.
It does, but it feels like every paragraph is inserted to fit only one thesis.
Maybe that of the Thompson family. Or maybe the Thomson family.
Shouldn't there be some quotes from the US leadership? Normally this would be a chance to claim a military victory, a "mission accomplished".
Perhaps the US are trying not even to acknowledge it. A reputable newspaper would normally include "the Department of War was contacted for comment" but maybe that's not appropriate for Reuters.
I somewhat agree - not necessarily with your content here, but that the article is written ... strangely.
For instance:
> US forces leave country where 4,500 of them died in worst US war of 21st century
I am not even certain that this war was worse than the Afghanistan war. Perhaps the Iraq war was objectively worse, but since the sudden withdrawal in Afghanistan, leaving the Taliban in charge, I am not so sure which war was worse. I am not even sure how to qualify it, so Reuters stating this was the worst war is ... indeed a strange label to use. Wasn't Reuters indeed more objective in the past? And with that I mean objective at all times, not white-washing or black-washing.
I now finished reading the article and it indeed seems op-ed. The reader now thinks that the war against Iran must continue. I still fail to understand why the USA invaded the area. Other than some making enormous profits, of course. If 911 was used as a rationale, why was not Saudi Arabia attacked?
I also tripped over that line but I think it’s content is very specific and the number of deaths is the clue: in terms of deaths the Iraq war is definitely the worst war of the US in the 21st century. You have to very literally read that line. And in that context that claim makes sense: In terms of deaths the Iraq war was the worst war.
Now, there are certainly other axis along which you can judge a war.
american deaths
The US had a clear reason to be in Afghanistan. It was a brutal quagmire with thousands of deaths (and many more Afghani deaths), but one could at least argue there was purpose in the beginning.
Iraq was 4500 dead for one Texan trying to imitate daddy while listening to his CEO buddies.
It was red herring. None of the villains on those planes are Afghanis or even Taleban. And the entire 20 years saga fighting there not even against the OBL but more of Taleban and bringing freedom that supposely Brits and Soviet cant. OBL troops morphed into Syria where infamously Obama crossed it with his "red lines" without boots on the ground but tons of CIAs operatives running around. We now know it has nothing to do with 911 but more of diverting the "real villains" attention far away in neighboring countries. But at least we bring freedom right? Unfortunately the Kabul government didnt even last 24 hours after we left in the most humiliating way possible. We surely made Soviet look incredibly powerful and foresighted. Their version of Afghan government lasted AFTER Soviet collapsed on budget while we burnt 10T. And then just like Pikachu surprised, China overtook USA as world most powerful country with weapon that we failed (railgun), own space station, robots, drones, rare earth, and even mbridge currency. Meanwhile we got the stable genius with flappy bird planes. And if you do OSINT way way more than 4.5K American KIA there. Way more. But hey, we cant even audit our Pentagon but we can trust-me-bro those number right?
United States lost a total of 2,459 military personnel in Afghanistan. It had less military deaths.
> > US forces leave country where 4,500 of them died in worst US war of 21st century
> I am not even certain that this war was worse than the Afghanistan war
The Iraq war from 2003-2011 (8-9 yr) had twice as many US troop deaths (4430) as the Afghanistan war (~20 yr)(2450) in double the amount of time.
*correction/clarity: should say "in half the amount of time."
> I lean (…) slightly geopolitically neoconservative
We have too many labels. That’s not good for a species which hates others based on different labels.
Edit: I should’ve expressed that this was a general thought triggered by the comment but it’s not a direct criticism of the person making it.
I don't support the Iran War but I do support global US hegemony because I believe the other two possible candidates, China and Russia, would be worse. And I think retaliation against Iran for their massacre of protesters was morally warranted, even if that was only a pretext for the war by Trump rather than an actual moral consideration, and even if moral merit alone does not justify major intervention or war.
"Slightly geopolitically neoconservative" is the short way to describe that.
Global Hegemony shouldn't exist. The Chinese are right (even if they are using this fact against the U.S.) that there shouldn't be a single world power police, and the very existence of such a thing feels like a dramatic, geopolitical failiure for everyone else.
In an ideal world, that would be true.
It's not an ideal, we're returning to a Multi-polar world not unlike the 15th century where that was the case.
My apologies, I should’ve been clearer. I’m in no way criticising you nor do I think your post was egregious in any way or that you are personally at fault, it just so happens that your post “clicked” the label exhaustion and I “typed out loud”.
Thank you for taking the time to clarify your position.
I wonder which of the hegemonies a Palestinian would prefer: the (Israel-influenced) US one, the Chinese one, or the Russian one.
Maybe each citizen of the world can have a vote. To make it fair, 1 US dollar of assets is one vote!
I do not support the US's support for Israel. I also do not support Russia's support for Iran or China's support for North Korea.
Hopefully we get a 2029 president who completely alters the alliance with Israel and makes further close association contingent on many serious changes in how they handle Gaza, the West Bank, and prosecution of terrorists and war criminals.
US did not retaliated against Iran for massacre of protesters. One of US (multiple) plans was to just change the head, keep regime as is and rule Iran Venezuela style - where torturers got promoted. In fact, US leadership openly and proudly does not care about killed or injured civilians.
US leadership openly and proudly praises authoritarians and dictators around the world. What are you on about in here.
I might not have been clear enough in my post, but I tried to include those exact caveats there and in other posts in the thread.
It is?
It reports on some reactions.
The beginning of the summary, which isn't a reaction, says "worst US war of 21st century"
Usually when the US forces exit a theater it's a prelude to war, like the Afghanistan withdrawal was so that they couldn't be retaliated against. I caution people not to get too excited about this.
The whole region is a energy drain for any empire involved. When the empire-exits, all the regional empire start butchering one another. Usually this is start of a culling of the locals by other locals. There is a reason people in empire border regions (balcans) are at each others throats 24/7.
This was agreed upon during Biden's term.
Unfortunately, millions of lives lost, another millions started hating US for what it did to their families.
I am curious what did the world gain from this?
For the US, oil money (in Dollars) and control over Iraq: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/why-does-the-us-control-i...
For Israel, oil from Kurdistan: The revival of the Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline fell through but Turkey stepped in to enable transport.
For both, the neutralization of a regional actor. The chaos that also weakened its neighbors. Eventually, the destruction of Syria. A base and flight path to attack Iran.
World? What would make you think this was ever about the world and not very particular interests?
Europe gained millions of refugees / cheap labour.
is this sarcasm?
No. Many in the Global South actually do believe that western superpowers create unrest in poor and developing countries to weaken them and exploit their resources which also include human resources.
While I don't believe that Western Europe caused wars in the Middle East for cheap labour / increased birthrate, I do see how big European corporations massively benefit from having a large influx of refugees. They do the jobs that natives don't want to do anymore. If you are looking for a garbage collector, a native will likely want 150% of minimum wage for that job. A recent refugee eager to start working has no problem doing the same job for minimum wage and zero benefits.
You are missing the big picture - blue collar workers can be easily attracted from anywhere in the world. War and unrest also causes the rich and the educated to seek opportunities elsewhere, and these are often the kind of people who also have the means to find opportunities abroad more easily. Getting a young, qualified and educated person as a refugee is huge bonus because without spending a dime on them you are getting a potentially productive tax payer and prospective citizen. And often these educated refugees are willing to do blue collar work too. You are right though that the middle-eastern conflicts aren't primarily about cheap labour but oil. Everything else is just the secondary benefit.
Cool, another AI-generated Israeli propaganda two-man "think tank".
Gonna collect em all.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank...
Come on, you can do better than this, Mossad.
Would you consider the parent comment a reasonable response?
> Come on, you can do better than this, Mossad.
Yeah, I'm sure that Mossad agents care what useful (?) idiots think on Hacker News.
I was more concerned with you spreading Israeli disinformation channels without any form of explanation.
> Yeah, I'm sure that Mossad agents care what useful (?) idiots think on Hacker News.
Only if they are not busy murderering citizens of other nations under false passports (https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/playing...),
exploding children with pagers (https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/09/exploding-pa...),
or kidnapping them for money in Denmark. (https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-heiress-accused-of-orde...)
I could do this all day, but I guess if I call out a wanted war criminal and his gang of extraordinary extrajudicial murderers, I am getting a call from Bibi’s wife and a severe case of radioactive poisoning.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vVFobCw6hIA&pp=ygUTU2FyYSBuZXR...
Finest people on the planet, if we lived in 1933. Winter is coming soon. I hear Hugo Boss is making fine coats.
Who wants to freeze when committing crimes against humanity, eh?
It's very obvious that anything remotely critical of israel gets flagged very frequently.
Stuff supportive of Israel gets flagged plenty, don't worry. Outraged supporters of both sides are active here.
Oil
It was not about oil. That is a harmful lie. The reality is more sobering and dangerous: it's the neocon agenda that led the invasion. There are people who fundamentally believe in nation building as national duty. That ideology should be addressed and resisted directly.
Distracting people with the oil excuse gives cover to ppl who need it least.
The Iraqi invasion if famous for how little nation building was planned really. The US troops went in, overthrew Saddam, and then they had not idea what to do next. Nobody was really thinking about how to rebuild after Saddam is gone.
The most salient motivation was (perceived) security. The US government was absolutely paranoid after 9/11 and they really did not want Saddam to continue ruling in Iraq.
« There are people who fundamentally believe in nation building as national duty. »
And in pursuit of their noble goals, somewhat paradoxically (in the untrained eyes of the naïve observer) they resort to bombing the infrastructure, destroying all state institutions, including education, and also loot^H^H^H securing the national cultural heritage (to preserve in custody in private collections in the City on the Hill). Actually, their belief is so strong that 20 years later the infrastructure still isn't rebuilt (except for oil export, but that's not what it's about).
Ill-intentioned cynics will question the motives of these nation builders and judge them on the merit of their results, not on the holiness of their belief. They will point out that the ped^H^H^H … actually doesn't really love children, but acts in pursuit of highly selfish goals.
Did it? How did the world gain oil from the invasion and occupation of Iraq? It’s not like Iraq wasn’t exporting oil before. That makes no sense to me even under the most cynical interpretation.
It's not just about the supply but who actually controls the production and distribution ... to paraphrase what somebody once said, "Aren't Americans darn lucky that wherever they go to spread democracy, they find oil?" ...
There's no evidence the US's motive or achieved outcome of the war was oil.
Seems "he tried to kill my father, now there's an excuse to take him out and turn his country into a democracy in the region, and a US-aligned entity" explains most of it.
Much like Trump, it's pettiness and prestige and a notion of more points on the board. (Though Trump did in fact attack Venezuela for oil, or possibly more so just to publicly boast about taking their oil and seem strong to his fans.)
There were no US oil companies operating in Iraq after nationalization of the oil industry in the 1970s and Western sanctions and what not. That is, of course, when that changed in 2003.
There was certainly an argument to be made about the oil factor. [0]
Also look up the Halliburton controversy with respect to conflict of interest in the administration.
This "oil" thing is a cover for Israeli lobbying
Actually, the "establishment of a Jewish homestead in Palestine" originally was a British cover story for "the oil thing".
Am I supposed to find evidence of "the oil thing" in the link you posted?
No, but the Levantine coast is strategic wrt ME oil reserves and also close to the Suez canal which oil can be shipped through (up to Suezmax), and part of the idea was to have a dependent proxy in the region to protect British interests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
The Balfour declaration article is a reference to how the occupation of Palestine came about; yes, there were specifically Jewish interests (only some Jews, by no means all), but there were also strong imperialist interests.
Britain was already occupying Palestine before the Balfour Declaration, and it was easier that way because they hadn't kicked out 3/4 of the population and pissed off all neighboring countries.
I had to look this up, and it turns out the British invasion of Palestine started in early 1917, coming from the Sinaï, they lost two battles of Gaza in March and April, and won the third on November 2, 1917, which is the exact date on the letter of the Balfour declaration, published a week later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Gaza
The British took Jerusalem in December, but it does not seem at all that they were occupying Palestine before in the sense that there was no more Ottoman resistance. Rather, large parts continued to be held by the Ottomans, who only surrendered in October 1918.
As for the population being kicked out, that was not in 1917/18 and not the feat of the British, but of the Jews (aided and abetted by the UN: expropriation plan), and in 1948. The British had, however, helped prepare the ethnic cleansing.
Anyway, what I meant by occupation in my previous comment was the current day occupation of Palestine by Jews mostly from Eastern Europe (Ashkenazi), who then “encouraged” Jews from other ME countries to resettle to Palestine, where they were creating a Jewish state.
Oh ok, they occupied before creating Israel but after the declaration
Entire article doesn't even use the words "oil" or "petrol." BP in Iran was about oil.
There's no oil in that country
Yeah! My wife leaving me and taking the kids is also a cover for Israeli lobbying.
Let's not dilute things. The "greater israel" goal is on full display.
It's actually just the elite class of mafioso that have weasled their way into power. Israel is convenient for them to support, as amongst other things they can test weapons on the population there. But "Israel secretly controlling everything" is a cute narrative for profoundly naive people of limited intelligence (on the right and left). Get rid of Israel and kill all the Jews - you'll still have the same class of people controlling everything, but with less leverage in the middle east (if Israel goes to the Muslims and not the Christian evangelicals or some secular corporate group, in which case business as usual). Having a scapegoat makes the world a nice easy place to understand, and more importantly makes people easy to control.
Why do you need "leverage" in the Middle East? Haven't they suffered enough since ~WWI colonization (including Africa and India and the surrounding regions)?
I haven't seen any serious circles and discussions that use israel as a scapegoat for every issue that arises, but it is also naive to deny what we see in front of our eyes and hear with our ears first hand from their own ministers; it's more clear now than ever.
Oh please, you can't honestly believe that the "The West" (primarily the US elites - and European- that essentially own democracy at this point) care about suffering? It's about winning and control of resources. Israel is committing war crimes - but that's business as usual. There are absolutely people that think Israel is essentially secretly controlling the world - and yes, they are stupid, and yes their stupidity is either encouraged or a "happy accident". Although, Israel has it's own agenda (removal of all power of the Palestinian Muslim population) and survival as a state, it serves it's purpose as a tool for the above mentioned elite and the states they use (the US primarily) to further their agenda (which is basically to stay in power indefinitely and continue to do whatever they want to do without any reprucussions).
> Oh please, you can't honestly believe that the "The West"... care about suffering?
Yep, that's my point. Many of us knew it from before, but the events of the past few years have really made the masks fall for all to see.
Frankly I don't care about whether or not they're colonized. Ottomans colonized the entire Mid East before, and Persia had its empire mostly in the same borders as today; that's just how the region works. I care that the US is doing things against its own interest.
The Ottoman Caliphate was nothing like western colonialism.
Is it against the interest of the US to cease supporting foreign entities and commit war crimes in the region?
I meant it's against US interests to support Israel. We're spending insane amounts of money and diplomatic capital for very little in return. It doesn't help against any of our serious enemies like Russia. It's not even a colony because it's not under US control like Venezuela is.
> We're spending insane amounts of money and diplomatic capital for very little in return.
One can argue it's having negative return. Hopefully more Americans wake up and vote to stop burning their taxes.
Please, we've have two parties directing the public's attention to every controversy except Israel for the past few decades. And none of the elites criticize Israel even when they go against US imperialist interests. Only reason this is even talked about now is because of younger people and because both Netanyahu and Trump made things too blatant lately.
> Get rid of Israel and kill all the Jews
Your words, not mine
Why on earth would any elites criticise Israel? As a state, it serves the purposes of the military industrial complex very well - it's useful to keep around. As a public opinion topic, politicians in the west will use Israel (pro or against) to get votes or public support. Like I said, "getting rid of Israel and the Jews" (which is what many people on the left and right, explicitly or implicitly want - not to mention this is the goal of Shia Islam nationalism) - won't actually change much other than decrease the ability of Western elites to project power into the region. I don't support this goal, as most extremists do, because although I'm anti-Israel, I'm not a psychopath. Cute you think a second-rate, self-serving, opportunist like Netanyahu is secretly pulling the strings though. Watch Israel die - and then I suppose you'll be scratching your little head wondering why the technocrats still run your world.
> not to mention this is the goal of Shia Islam nationalism
The fact that there are jews in Iran shows that they don't have the narrative of "getting rid of the jews".
A tiny minority (especially a people of the book) that knows their place isn't offensive to Islamic nationalism. The jizya system is designed for this. A Jewish majority state in the middle of the land of the Muslims is pretty offensive to Islamic nationalism though.
I never said that Israel, or especially Netanyahu, runs the world. Israeli-American lobby groups and individuals have some share of power. There are also just a lot of politicians who are Jewish themselves or have ties, like Biden's and Trump's children. They don't have to control a whole lot to ensure US support for Israel, only be coordinated enough on their particular interests so nobody considers it worthwhile to challenge them, also be discreet. This has been studied for decades. Now that strategy has been broken, and we're seeing more politicians start to turn against Israel.
So back to what I said and not words put in my mouth, we started a war on Iraq for Israel, now same thing with Iran.
> I suppose you'll be scratching your little head
Ok, bye
You said nothing incorrect in that particular comment and I agree. Sorry I implied your head was little, clearly I was wildly wrong. But stating that there are pro-israel individuals (Jewish and otherwise) lobby groups (which is true, and has been public information for a long time), as well as cultural-historical-political motivations for supporting Israel, it does not follow that the US technocratic elite and the military industrial complex are "in the pocket" of Israel, which is what the loudest reactionaries are implying or outright stating. The truth is in fact, quite a lot more disheartening.
Netanyahu was there lying to congress about WMDs in the leadup to the invasion.
The section on Syria checks out though.
Most of the stuff in there was true, but the thing is, it was their problem and not ours. And when ISIS became our problem, Israel said it's not their problem.
Which is a cover for the deep state illuminati that control us with the 5G!
It's not that deep. Those lobby groups said exactly what they push for, and our politicians showed their loyalty
Well, in the large theme of things, its irrelevant. The region butchers itself regularly- with the us involved or without. If they spend a 100 years undisturbed doing local wars - it would have been no different.
Downvote all you want, but the region had its first "nuclear" war in 2016 - with proliferation tracking "nukes" so really who cares. It blew itself up, it will blow itself up again.
Warrior cultures "Klingons" do not go to space, they go to heaven. All warrior cultures! Yes, that includes the whole viking-wotan setup too!
St.Fermi frowns at thee
One thing that people for some reason don't like to voice out loud: America won this way. Maybe it has become politically incorrect to even voice anything positive at all, like doomerism grasped all sides of society?
Baath party is destroyed and no longer exists, political and underlying ethnic groups that propped it up are deeply marginalised and sidelined, political regime in place in Iraq is exactly the one America wanted to have there, and it WORKS: they have regular competitive elections (in the strictest sense of it: before the elections, no one can predict results in advance) and a well-functioning civil society where people can advocate for, or protest against things without it devolving to tribalism (not "Shia vs Sunni" riots or similar). Iraq as it currently is, is created by America and stands firmly on its feet.
2021 elections: The 2021 Iraqi parliamentary election resulted in violent protests in Baghdad as well as a political crisis of eleven months <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/12/iraqi-mps-from-fire...>
2025 elections: Briefing: Iran media call Iraq election result victory for 'Resistance' <https://monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/b0004xgt>
Amnesty International Report on human rights in 2025 <https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...>
It means that Iraq went from well, Iraq level of dictatorship, violence and tribalism to well, about Serbian level. I can call it big progress.
Yeah sure, really stable, apart from Islamic State invasion of Iraq between 2014 and 2017.
To be fair, we can't blame that on the American intervention in Iraq, it's more properly blamed on American intervention in Syria.
Was there any American intervention in Syria back in 2014?! Only Russian one.
We sent arms and aid to the rebel groups in Syria generally because we didn't like Assad, ISIS rose out of those groups.
But in the end of the day, it was a victory too? Putin got his ass kicked, Assad reduced to playing xbox on Moscow dacha, pro-American and pro-Israeil forces are in charge in Syria.
I'm sure that's a great comfort to all the people ISIS killed.
But does it really matter? We are speaking about American and broader Western interests. If more Shia kill more Sunni and they in turn kill more Alawites or whoever, why do we need to be concerned?
Better question: If we don't need to be concerned, why were we involved in the first place?
Syria: because of threat Assad presented to the free world in general but especially to Israel in particular, both directly, and by allowing Iran to transport weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Neither is the case anymore: Israel is safe from that direction.
Iraq: back back in the day, US really depended on oil coming from the Middle East. This problem was eventually resolved by fracking.
There it is. Some lives matter and some don't.
Tell me, if we don't care about Shia killing Sunnis, and we definitely don't care about Jews killing Muslims... why should we care about Muslims killing Jews? I'm Christian.
pro american and pro israeli forces are not in charge in Syria
Yes there was.
"In September 2014, the United States began to undertake efforts to establish a global coalition with the declared aim of countering the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.[26] Since September 2014, the U.S. had conducted military operations in Syria, primarily against ISIL forces as part of Operation Inherent Resolve."
More:
Have they finally found weapons of mass destruction there? I remember a certain powerpoint presentation ...
This system is rumored to be currently looking for nuclear weapons of Iran in some girl's schools.
Why would you put your military assets in the middle of your civilian population?
Although the loss of that school is quite saddening :/ poor girls
What military assets? Did that school contain those scary Iran nuclear weapons? BTW, where did Iraq store their WMD after all? In the oil wells, right?
> I remember a certain powerpoint presentation ...
I remember a speech at the UN, with a certain vial being held..
(they still had some US-made biological weapons to be fair)
Same playbook as Iran being 3 months away from nukes.
Good news. Maybe Iraq will finally be able to control its own oil again.
https://thecradle.co/articles/why-does-the-us-still-control-...
Judging by what is newly happening in Venezuela, I think its unlikely USA will cede control over Iraq's oil/money as the mentality of the US state is unchanged. And USA is in debt/various individuals profiting personally.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-control-venezuelan-oil-revenue-...
Classic Chappelle show skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFERPDn3i0o
Iran is becoming the new regional power while USA is retreating from the entire ME.
>Iran is becoming the new regional power
Is that what the Iranian state media is telling you?
These are facts. American bases are destroyed or being withdrawn. USA can no longer protect its allies from Iran. Hence, Iran is becoming the only power in the region.
P.S. I have no idea what is Iranian state media or how to watch/read it.
Iran is best mates with the other Superpower country, China. And via China, Russia and the Brics and other China allies.
So Iran with these partners and the population size and natural resources, its reasonable to say it is a regional power. And not a 'new' one, but has been for some time.
One of Trump and allies main points right now is that Iran and allies are decimating regional bases and air capacities.
Look at the US allies in the region, they're all struggling to defend against Iran right now. The US is dangerously low on munitions to protect allies and much of the US's presence in the area has been bombed.
The US is losing this war.
Given the geostrategic situation there, either the West or Iran meddles in Iraq. Full sovereignty is hard to achieve in such a neighbourhood unless you are one of the traditional powers (Iran, Turkey).
Nobody has full sovereignty. As long as Iraq can sell their own oil without routing through Langley or Tehran, then it's all good.
Looking at the Hormuz Strait, they'd better build a very good pipeline to the Mediterranean. Both the US and Iran seem to be very interested in controlling who sails through.
Iraq isn't interested in bombing Gaza or Lebanon so I don't foresee they will have issues. Iran and Iraq are more aligned than Usrael and Iran.
> (the) departure (is) celebrated as a victory by Iran and its allies who now have deep influence in the country
Although the Iraq war was based on a lie and caused tremendous suffering, it did demonstrate the US's willingness and capability to handle a brash dictatorship. In this sense, at least at a macro level, it has tempered (as opposed to emboldened) other dictatorships like Iran and North Korea.
> a departure celebrated as a victory by Iran and its allies who now have deep influence in the country where 4,500 Americans died during more than two decades of war.
Kind of crazy to lead with this. Talking about the Americans victims (mostly military) and ignoring the local Iraqi victims (mostly civilians).
> Kind of crazy to lead with this. Talking about the Americans victims (mostly military) and ignoring the local Iraqi victims (mostly civilians).
Perhaps you will remember the Taguba report on Abu Ghraib, when a superior of his suggested he let it go because they were "only Iraqis".
I had a coworker who is a refugee from iraq. He used to say "we had schools, roads and hospitals, now we have none of that but we have democracy".
> Talking about the Americans victims (mostly military) and ignoring the local Iraqi victims (mostly civilians)
You forgot to add that in 20 years time, America will go back to Iraq to make a film about how killing Iraqis made thier soldiers feel sad.
This is standard US procedure.
Do you mean The Hurt Locker? They didn't even wait 10 years!
Don't worry they also make films celebrating the passion behind the killings like American Sniper
It’s an article about us forces leaving Irak seems reasonable to talk about how many they lost during the time they were there…
It would be inappropriate to talk about how many women and children they dismembered in their eulogy
4,500 Americans and how many civilians?
This seems like weird timing to this amateur seeing how they're at war with Iran and Iraq was recently used to stage attacks against Saudi oil infrastructure.
"We believe Iraq is still not fully ready to take over the security file at this time"
Welp, sounds like it wasn't going to happen.
Mission Accomplished!
The American balloon is popping.
How many European forces are in Iraq? I guess the EU balloon has already popped, by your metric.
The European balloon popped in 1914-18.
Not getting themselves in over their heads expending loads of money and blood is somehow a bad thing now? Historys proven the doubt right outside some really niche circles.
So is being in Iraq a bad thing or not? Is it balloon popping?
Being in Iraq is a bad thing, but it's also not a good sign if the pullout was forced due to lack of resources.
I'm not sure if you're acting obtuse or you genuinely don't understand the difference between not doing something stupid versus extracting yourself from a stupid situation.
If I jump off a building and land on the pavement and break both of my legs this does not mean the person who is watching me from the street is as foolish as me despite us both ending up in the same place. The reason why I am dumber than this fictional observer is that we have not taken the same route to get there and I now have broken legs
Well yeah, it can be both
Europeans left in the mid 1900's
Exit Japan and Philippines next.
why? they haven't lost any war there
they have lost their credibility that they can protect their allies and their bases are actually a liability for the host country
Both of those statements seem false.
How so? US could not protect its allies in the gulf, it has lost up to 15 of its bases in those countries. If Iran could do this, imagine what can China do to US bases around it. All parties (China, US, Japan/Korea/Taiwan) now know this. So the question is what purpose do US bases in those countries serve?
> US could not protect its allies in the gulf
If the goalpost is "being an impervious shield". I think a more reasonable expectation would be to prevent or respond to a Kuwait situation and keep shipping open. Obviously that second one is a huge failure.
But we have only seen bombings and angry tweets. The US military is capable of quite a bit more. It's a terrible path to go down (and we may do so in about a month), but we haven't seen the full capability of the military because the orange guy in charge only wants to do bombings and threaten genocide.
It wouldn't be worth disputing the semantics of what kind of black mark this is for the US as a global power, except that you use it to conclude there is no point to maintaining bases in the far east. If you think they don't matter, just look up any discussion of Chinese warplanning.
The question is what purpose do those bases serve. I am not sure what war planning you are referring to, but I am sure that it is being adapted in the light of the current situation and those bases will be rendered useless on day one in case a war breaks out (like with Iran to a lesser extent).
Yes, the bases (and stationary targets on both sides) are absolutely in danger. One thing they do is act as military infrastructure up until the start of the conflict (and in a reduced capacity after).
From what I've read, there are two likely Taiwan scenarios:
1. China targets US bases and ships before sending transport craft across the strait. Sending transports without that first strike would be suicide. Unless this reporting is wildly inaccurate, it is a very clear acknowledgment of the impact of the US military presence abroad.
2. China blockades the island. This opens the door to a Crimea-like soft invasion whose outcome depends on the international response.
In both cases, bases in theatre play a huge role. You talk about "day one" - in either scenario above it's not a one-sided first strike where the plarf wrecks US bases and ships and the pla dances into Taipei. Recall how much advance warning the US publicly gave of the Russian invasion?
When you are deciding on your takeways from the Iran conflict, remember that it's a bombing campaign and not reflective of a full near-peer war.
Iraq is a country of more than 40 million of inhabitants. They can take care of theirselves. Using an argument of some "sleeper cells", come on, it's silly. Is the US army only thing holding up their government? If yes then what do you expect? Either it falls the same way as in Afganistan, or it fights for itself.
Again?
Are ya winning son?
The last 5 years will be 5 chapters in history books