[We've] got a tiger by the tail

Remember the old country song by Buckminster Owens, "I've got a tiger by the tail"?

I've got a tiger by the tail, it's plain to see;
I won't be much when you get through' with me
Well, I'm a losing weight and a turnin' mighty pale
Looks like I've got a tiger by the tail

Well, I thought the day I met you, you were meek as a lamb;
Just the kind to fit my dreams and plans
But now, the pace we're livin' takes the wind from my sails
And it looks like I've got a tiger by the tail

I'm thinking Minster Buck saw something the rest of us didn't.  Was he writing about the 21st Century world we would soon be living in?  Was he writing back in 1964 about how we in the West would soon be grabbing hold of a bunch of rag-tag religious fanatics in a part of the world we would be hard pressed to find on a map, only to learn they were a tiger we would have no idea how to let go of without getting mauled?

Here's how we got into this mess, the epitome of "unintended consequences":  

The USSR, wanting to support their puppet Marxist allies, invaded Afghanistan in 1979.  The collective Afghan warlords fought back, aided by 35,000 foreign Sunni Muslim fighters who became known as the mujaheddin, and were supported financially and materially by the USA.  Our goal was to simply foil our arch-enemy the Soviet Union.  There was nothing there for us, we just wanted to poke a sharp stick in their eye.  Our side eventually won and the commies permanently tucked tail and ran in 1989.

Shortly thereafter, in August, 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and the West was concerned (scared shitless actually) that he would get control of the Saudi Arabian oil fields.  If he did, we were SCREWED!  Geo Bush the First quickly offered to send our military to defend the Saudi's and drive Iraq out of Kuwait, and Osama bin Laden offered to bring his battle hardened mujaheddin and do the same.  The Saudi's cast their lot with the US.  This miffed bin Laden and the fight was on.  (Numerous groups of hard-core Islamic fundamentalists had begun to congeal under bin Laden by 1988 and eventually became known as Al Qaeda, "The Base".)

One of the hardest-core of the bunch, the branch in Iraq, later split off and morphed into what we know today as ISIS.  For a while they were going gangbusters, gaining control of large swaths of Iraq and Syria.  As the old saying goes, "success breeds success"....Muslim malcontents from all over the world looked at their brothers winning for a change and wanted in, too.

In short order ISIS began planning for their ultimate demise as a Caliphate controlling land in the Mid East....it was one of their prophecies....and began sending trained soldiers back to where they came from to snipe at us guerrilla-style.  Now they and their home-grown extremist buddies are stalking us.  Their numbers are still pretty small, but it seems like they're hitting far above their weight class.

I wonder if any of this would have happened if we had just told the Soviets back in '79, "You want Afghanistan?  It's all yours....the big rock piles, the ignorant pissed off peasants, the whole mess.  Good luck."  Would Osama bin Laden have ever assembled his merry band of jihadists without US support?  No Al Qaeda, no ISIS?  As objectionable as "fracking" for oil is, if we had pursued it earlier, could we have reduced our crushing dependency on Mid East oil sooner?  Would we have cared then if they had all just jihadided each other into oblivion?

Now the BIG QUESTION....do you think we've learned anything from this mess we've gotten ourselves into?

S

So what shape should we make the wheel this time?

Can any of you remember the first Persian Gulf war in Iraq, circa 1990-91?  That was the one where we bombed everything Iraq had of military value for a couple of months, then turned the Army and Marines loose on what was left. 

After only 100 hours, literally, President George H.W. Bush called them off and dictated terms to Saddam Hussein, allowing him to remain as Iraq's dictator.  Ever wonder why that was?  

It was because the King of Saudi Arabia counseled Bush 41 to stop pursuing Saddam, telling him he might stir up (an even bigger) hornet's nest if he wasn't careful.   

And these Boy Scouts should know

What the King meant was, even the region's really despicable tyrants like Saddam Hussein looked pretty tame compared to the other nut jobs itching to step into their shoes.

Truth is, as I've stated before, the people in that part of the world have a different value system, a different way of thinking.  Our Western ideas of "logic" and "decency" just don't translate.  They are simply an uncivilized society. 

No, of course I don't mean every single one of them.  But enough that it makes my statement valid.  While we in the US have our Westboro Baptist Church types, they are just tiny little cells of crazies scattered here and there.  

In Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, on and on....their extremists are a huge percentage (a majority?) of their population.  Say something unkind about their religion or publish an offensive cartoon and they issue a fatwah on your ass.

My point is, they always have and always will fight and kill each other.  That's all they know how to do.  At times they might subscribe to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and work together, but it's a fleeting arrangement.  Blink twice and they're right back at each others throats.

Now the Sunni Muslim minority in Iraq are on a roll and are vowing to take over the entire country by brute force.  Our concern is that if they do it will open the door for more extremists to train there and eventually threaten us here in America.  

The truth is, even if the Sunni militants (the ISIS) DON'T take over all of Iraq by brute force (they're unlikely to capture Baghdad proper or other Shia strongholds) they can and likely will still train others to come after us.  Count on it.  While it would be nice to keep the bad guys "over there", I'm afraid we're past that.

Make no mistake, this is not an American failure.  It's an Iraqi failure.  We set them up with every material advantage they could possibly need to succeed.  What we can't give them is new gray matter between their ears.

So what do we do?  (Q:  Why does the entire world look to the USA when something "needs to be done"?)  IMHO, and as seen through my pragmatic eyes, here's what I think we should do:  Get some chips and dip and maybe a few beers, sit back, and if we're lucky watch the militants on both sides annihilate each other.  While we should pray they spare the innocents, it's simply out of our hands.

LATE NEWS:  It was just reported that the US will soon send 275 Special Forces to "advise" the Iraqi Security Forces.  So the 150,000 troops we once had there couldn't "fix" Iraq, but now these 275 can?

DUH!  Even rocks are smarter than that.

S

And he has a bad haircut, too.

Yeah, yeah....I know.  We're supposed to be all hot and bothered by the little North Korean leader dude, but frankly, I'm just not feelin' it.  He just doesn't look the part.  He looks like he should be sitting in that teacup ride at Disney World going round and round.  Or maybe eating cotton candy while waiting for his turn on a ferris-wheel somewhere.

I mean, think of all the really bad guys over the last century....Hitler, Stalin, Mao Say Dung, Saddam What'shisname....they just reeked of evil, right?  This Korean guy, not so much.  I think he should be the poster child showing what happens when parents indulge their kids too much and don't discipline them during their formative years.

As for my personal feelings for Dear Leader III....I'll just follow my alter ego's lead:

Now back to our regularly scheduled Saturday morning cartoons.

S