U.S. Middle East Policies -- Count The Errors

In Iraq, we made two tremendous errors.  First, after a highly successful invasion, someone in the State Dept, Crocker, I believe, decided that in the new government, no one who had been in the Baath Party would be allowed a governmental job.  There would be no Baathist police, or administrators, or anything else.  How stupid!  Who did they think would administer the affairs of Iraq?  People who knew nothing of the job?  The consequent chaos could easily have been predicted.

The second error, as big if not bigger than that of the first, was failing to divide Iraq into three parts, a Kurdish part, a Sunni part, and a Shiite part.  The Kurds for all practical purposes already ran their own part.  And, so, we now are left with the Shiites in the south, Maliki as their leader, trying to dominate the Sunni part.  It's not working out too well.  Who can blame the Sunnis for fighting against a Shiite government.

We allowed Yugoslavia to be divided into its three ethnic entities -- the Croates, the Serbs, and the Muslims.  Why not Iraq?  As a result of this piece of stupidity on the part of the U.S., we now find the moderate Sunnis allying themselves with al Queda types.  Should this surprise anyone?

And what do I hear of the American response?  They are going to help the Iraq government, or so I hear.  But what does that mean, other than we are going to help the Shiites subjugate the Sunnis.  Does this make any sense?

Let's now turn to Syria.  The majority of Syrians wanted to dump Assad, and for good reason.  We should have promptly supported the Syrians who were largely secular Sunni.  We did not do this.  Here are the results:
a. Assad gases his people with no consequences for him.
b. Assad drops barrel bombs on Syrian civilians. (Where are the stinger missiles that might take down these bombers?)
c. Al Queda joins the secular Sunnis in their battle against Assad.  This is not a good thing, but is anyone surprised when we have turned our back on the secular Sunnis?

To compound our errors, we talk about meaningless "red lines."  We make empty declarations such as "Assad must go."  And, in the meantime, Russia's Putin arms Assad, and guides the U.S. to a deal on poison weapons that has the effect of keeping Assad in power and allows his army to chew up his secular Sunni enemies.

The problem is that America always teaches others the lessons we always seem to forget.  It's Putin, not Obams, who now speaks quietly, but carries a big stick.

One could go on as to how Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are treated by the U.S..  But what's the use? It's only more of the same.