As Iraq Unravels, US Repeats Mistakes

[pscot]

13. We didn't install the Saudis in Arabia

Qadaffi was not our creature, nor was Saddam. You can ignore history if you like, but beyond the tribal level, Democracy is an unnatural recent construct, invented, quite accidentally, by the British. The elites, religious and political, of most of the Middle Eastern peoples have never bought into it. Egypt survived 5000 years of autocratic rule before we came along. Morsi was deposed not by us, but by street rioters. The choice was not Democracy or the military, but rather the Mullahs or the military. Our interference in the region has generally been feckless and ill advised, motivated mainly by oil, and before that by British colonial interests. I think the people of the ME should be let alone to determine their own fate. It's not within our writ to tell them how to govern themselves or to rescue them from the consequences of their actions. If that's racism I guess I'll wear it.