It Would Be a Major Disaster for Britain and the US to Intervene in Iraq

DAILY EXPRESS: BRITAIN and the US may abhor the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq but they have played a major part in encouraging it.

And the upsurge of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant across northern Iraq is a pointer to what is likely to happen in Afghanistan once Nato pulls out its combat troops at the end of this year.

Whether we like it or not, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were serious strategic mistakes.

We destroyed the repressive regime of Saddam Hussein but opened the door for Islamic fundamentalists.

Saddam was an evil man but he opposed fundamentalism and he kept it under control.

After the invasion we destroyed the Iraqi army and Iraq’s security apparatus.

This allowed Islamic fundamentalism to get in and make very serious inroads into the Iraqi Government architecture.

We sowed the wind and now we are reaping the whirlwind. Read on and comment » | Major Charles Heyman | Saturday, June 14, 2014

Alan Grayson: Syria 'Is Not Our Responsibility'

The congressional debate to get involved in Syria continued on Capitol Hill on Thursday, and while President Obama is at the G-20 summit in Russia, lawmakers from both sides showed their support for and against the proposed efforts. The motion to implement strikes on the Syrian regime for allegedly using chemical weapons on its own people moved forward on Wednesday when the United States Senate of Foreign Relations Committee authorized involvement in the Middle Eastern country. But Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) said he will do his best to influence other lawmakers that this isn't our problem. He joins us now to explain his position.

Tell Congress: Don’t Attack Syria »

Military Missteps: Bomb-first Diplomacy Becomes Habitual to US

The US is insisting that this time around will be nothing like Iraq or Serbia, or Libya. Washington is confident that when it comes to Syria, the evidence is unquestionable. Just like it was when Saddam Hussein was accused of hiding weapons of mass destruction. Here's RT's Gayane Chichakyan, on America's record of military missteps.

The U.S. Helps Reconstruct the Ottoman Empire
GATESTONE INSTITUTE: Each of these United States military interventions occurred in an area that had been part of the Ottoman Empire, and where a secular regime was replaced by an Islamist one. So far, the German policy of keeping hidden its leadership role in its attempt to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire has succeeded.

Since the mid-1990s the United States has intervened militarily in several internal armed conflicts in Europe and the Middle East: bombing Serbs and Serbia in support of Izetbegovic's Moslem Regime in Bosnia in 1995, bombing Serbs and Serbia in support of KLA Moslems of Kosovo in 1999, bombing Libya's Gaddafi regime in support of rebels in 2010. Each intervention was justified to Americans as motivated by humanitarian concerns: to protect Bosnian Moslems from genocidal Serbs, to protect Kosovo Moslems from genocidal Serbs, and to protect Libyans from their murderous dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Other reasons for these interventions were also offered: to gain for the United States a strategic foothold in the Balkans, to defeat communism in Yugoslavia, to demonstrate to the world's Moslems that the United States is not anti-Moslem, to redefine the role of NATO in the post-Cold War era, among others.

Each of these United States military interventions occurred in an area that had been part of the Ottoman Empire. In each, a secular regime was ultimately replaced by an Islamist one favoring sharia law and the creation of a world-wide Caliphate. The countries that experienced the "Arab Spring" of the 2010s without the help of American military intervention, Tunisia and Egypt, had also been part of the Ottoman Empire, and also ended up with Islamist regimes. Read on and comment » | Robert E. Kaplan * | Wednesday, May 29, 2013

* Robert E. Kaplan is an historian, doctorate from Cornell University, specializing in modern Europe.