It Ain't Easy Placing Blame.

       I'd like to know just who's to blame for all the problems in the middle east today. Who can we look in the eye and say "it's your fault?" Well, okay, but we're gonna have to go back a ways. After WWI, the "big war". The War to end all wars, the European winners of that conflict, got to build new countries out of the middle east. I don't think the U.S. was interested in any of it at the time. So England and France sort of drew lines on a map and named the countries.
       The problem with that was they didn't give any consideration to ethnic or religious hatreds. They just divided up the land and claimed sovereignty over their chosen pieces of sand. That threw Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds and anyone else who happened to be there into the same states, then ruled them with iron fists until tribal strongmen and dictators took over.
       Now fast forward to the 1980s. America was now mad as all get out with the Iranians. We helped Saddam Husain because he went to war with Iran. We secretly gave him all sorts of help including poison gas, which he later used on Iran and his own people, but he was still our darling in the mid-east. Then at the end of that decade, he decided he'd like Kuwait. Saddam was no different than most dictators in that he was never satisfied with that he had. So he had his people ask our people if it was okay with us if he took Kuwait. The answer he got back was yeah, yeah, whatever.
       So he took Kuwait and suddenly we were mortified. We forced him out of Kuwait after a short but memorable war. Then in 2002 our Administration was looking for an excuse to kick this bad guy out. He had weapons of mass destruction and was trying for the nuclear advantage. Not really, but it sounded good to a lot of people. So we kicked out the only guy in the middle east that actually was keeping a lid on all the sectarian hatreds. Brutally, but effectively. This was to be the second short war with Iraq. This quick, slick, clean operation lasted a brief 10 years.
       Then the democratically elected government of Iraq kicked us out. They didn't want us and if we left any troops in Iraq, Al Maliki wouldn't promise not to arrest any of our soldiers. So we left. And as sure as the rising and setting of the sun, the various factions and religions and ethnicities started fighting. So getting back to who we should blame, I'd say we should blame every president and advisor to presidents we've had since WWI. Equally. But anyway you slice it, because they have oil, they're gonna be a thorn in our side.