Well I think it was an enemy of my enemy is my friend mentality. The Cold War was still going on in the 80's and Iran was definetly an enemy to US interests in the area so Saddam didn't seem so bad back then. And Afghanistan was seen as a way for the CIA to evaluate Soviet Tactics and Equipment in a real war setting. So it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Karl Rove
- Thread starter BushPilot
- Start date
But isn't that the way it's been, time after time? Don't we ever learn from history? We support some SOB in the pursuit of a single-minded interest be it the drug war or fighting communism ("But he's not so bad because he's OUR SOB!") who later turns on us to bite us in the ass but hard?Sigpig02 said:
Unfortunantly no we don't 
. It seems our political leaders seem to forget that lesson despite the cost of an earlier blunder.
. It seems our political leaders seem to forget that lesson despite the cost of an earlier blunder. Sigpig02 said:
Yet this was the same Saddam Hussein that started the Iran-Iraq War. This is the same Saddam Hussein that gassed the Kurds and the US looked the other way. This is the Saddam Hussein that invaded Kuwait and the US stood by declaring it would do nothing.
Yep because the Ayatolla was considered to be the main threat in the Persian Gulf region and the US was more than willing to support Iraq in their war. They thought the Iraqi Army would defeat the Iranian Army and unseat the Iranain government and replace the Shah. They were wrong in that assessment and when Iraq attacked Kuwait, the US were not going to liberate Kuwait at first but protect the Saudi's oil fields.
Sigpig02 said:
The US during a good chunk of the Cold War saw to it that the Shah of Iran have the strongest military in the Middle East. While Iran was very much modernized in a relatively short period, there was a tremendous cost thanks to the Shah, a Persian version of Saddam Hussein if you will. The Shah's regime was highly oppressive and widely practiced torture, at times taught to them by the Israelis. Talk about the enemy of my enemy being my friend!
Anyhow, it was after the revolution in Iran that Saddam Hussien went ahead with the Iraqi invasion of its neighbour to the east. The assumption was the revolution, by them in the firm grip of the extremist Islamic clerics and their followers, had destabilized Iran to the point that an victory would come easy. Indeed the Iraqi military initially advanced much like the Germans invaded France in 1940. However the Iranians stymied the invasion and something more akin to WW1 was fought until 1988. By then neither side saw any chance of victory and no longer had the desire to continue the war, especially when it came to the cost. Iraq had a good portion of its cost paid for by the Saudis and other Gulf states such as Kuwait.
The latter was slant drilling into Iraqi territory as found after the "Mother of All Battles". So Iraqi did have something of legitimate beef against Kuwait. With the US stating it was not interested in the dispute between Iraq and Kuwait, Saddam Hussein took that as it being alright to invade what was once part of Iraqi territory. Kuwait had been taken away from Iraq by the British who in turn were looking to set up secure supplies of oil.
For the most part Iraq has not had a particularly effective military. Large yes, but poorly trained and led. I think it was an Israeli general that once remarked the Iraqis made the Egyptians look like the Prussians. We know how Egypt got its butt kicked a few times between 1947 and 1979.
they would have a tough time reinstating the shah, he was dying on a island in the panama canal. Provided by noreiga, by request of his buddy George Bush sr. No other country would take him.and it cost him big coin... They finally let him come to ny ny to die.
