neobib,
Few leaders believed that merely the overthrow of Saddam would make everything hunky-dory and create an instant democracy.
Obviously, they didn't believe the country would fall apart the way that it did, but it shouldn't have been much of a surprise, considering the Sunnis, as Ba'th Party officials held most of the administrative positions that kept the government functioning.
But one point to be made here is that EVEN SADDAM was having difficulty containing the Wahabbist/Salafist militancy arising in Iraq. He had to make a number of "drug deals" with radicalized clerics and tribal leaders who were too powerful to eliminate.
IMO, it would have been no longer than 5-10 years before Saddam found himself fighting a similiar insurgency led by Islamic militants. This has been an on-going trend for the past two decades, and it's exacerbated by the demographics of a very youthful population in the region. Young people growing up in stagnant economies that cannot provide them what they aspire to obtain.. So that tends to lead them to reject the current politico-economic systems and become ativists, radicals, and often.. militants.
And in this case, it's a religious ideal, not communism, or anarchism, that drives them.. They want to re-create the "old glory" of the first caliphate.
And they really could care less about what the west thinks or believes.. They want us to poo-poo them and lead us to believe they are not a viable threat.. They wish us to remain complacent until they have all of their pieces in place to make their power play..
The overthrow of Saddam created such an opportunity and now the Iraqi people, as well as coalition forces, are bearing the brunt of what the militants have in store for the region.. and the world.. Islamo-Fascism.. Taliban style..
And VERY FEW MEMBERS of the American voting public fully understand what's at stake here in the Mid-East. Hell, even the Iraqi people here had blinders on until they started coming under local control of the Mujs like Zarqawi and his ilk.
And they don't like it. Not one bit.. They don't like having Foreign Fighters in their country any more than they like US forces here. But given a preference, I can almost guarantee you that they prefer the US and coalition forces over being occupied by Zarqawi and his QJBR (Al Qai'da in Iraq) foreign fighters.
Hawk |
