Sunday, January 26, 2014

The USA is best left out of the civil wars in Iraq and Syria. The body count would be higher if The West were involved. Far higher.

Assad has to give up the idea he will be able to maintain Syria in a Pre-Civil War status. It is too late for that. We has to stop killing the Sunni Muslims.

By Christopher R. Hill
Special to Gulf News
Published: 20:00 January 26, 2014

...What is happening in Anbar (click here) is nothing less than a fight for the existence of Iraq in its current borders. As much as Iraq’s Sunnis fear for their future, the Shiite majority, now overseeing the untested proposition of a Shiite-led Arab state, also have reasons to be fearful. Even paranoids have enemies. While Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki should devote more effort to negotiating and compromising with the Sunni community than he has to cracking down on its leaders and activists, he nonetheless has before him the daunting task of consolidating a Shiite-led Iraqi state with no natural allies in the rest of the Arab world....

...police and military checkpoints are beginning to look like border crossings, essentially cutting off Sunni-dominated Anbar from the rest of Iraq. And while those internal checkpoints are being reinforced, the actual border with Sunni-dominated parts of Syria is becoming more porous by the day....

The map to the left is not Iraq, it is Syria and the religious distribution within the country.

The war in Iraq was fought completely "W:"rong by the USA. The most brutal battles were in Al Anbar. Why would that be? 

The Middle East often divides between religion and/or ethnicity. The resistance in Al Anbar is long lived once the Shi'ites won elections within the central government. The USA fought the Iraq War as if the USA Civil War to unit it under one sovereignty.
When the USA entered Iraq is began to destabilize the entire region. One has to accept there were tensions throughout the region before realizing Iraq triggered the aspirations of generations within the Shi'ite and Kurdish people.

The map to the right is the language distribution in Syria. The most obvious division exists between Kurds and the rest of the nation.

Al Anbar is Sunni.as is the majority of Syria. There are Shi'ites along the coast of Syria where Russia has a port. The north of Iraq and Syria are Kurds. This unrest was boiling below the surface for a long time. It was going to happen. It was just a matter of time.

When the USA entered Iraq is completely changed the face of authority in the country. With that began the emergence of a shift in the 'lines in the sand.'

The more The West puts forward a military front in these nations, the stronger the opposition become and the more al Qaeda will be viewed as an important authority. Al Qaeda erupts when the people are struggling to win their fight. The people don't want war. They want peace, but, they are willing to fight for it on their terms.