2003: The Americans Invade Iraq
In 2003 the Americans invaded Iraq.
In 2002 the Americans saw the rise of the Islamists in Turkey. The Turkish Islamist were supported by the Iranians and I believe by the Russians too. The Kemalist Turks are strong US allies and they wanted Turkey to be tied to the Western world. With the rise of the Islamists Turkey will distance herself from the West and will move towards Asia, and in the 2000s the Turkish-Russian natural gas pipelines will go ahead (Blue Stream).
At the same time that the Americans were seeing Turkey moving closer to Russia, in order to get cheap natural gas, they were also seeing Saudi Arabia moving closer to China, in order to boost her oil exports. The Iranians and the Iraqis, together with certain Saudi and Qatari circles were supporting terrorist attacks against the Americans, who were trying to bring the oil and natural gas of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to India.
The Americans were left with no allies in the Persian Gulf. After the Al-Qaeda attacks at the Twin Towers the Americans even had to move their military bases from Saudi Arabia to Qatar. But even donors from Qatar were funding Al-Qaeda. The Qataris wanted the American bases as an insurance against the Iranians and the Saudis, but they are not true allies of United Staes.
The Americans were desperate for allies, and they decide to liberate the Shia majority (65%) of Iraq, and the Kurds of Iraq, from the ruthless ruling of Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein has a Sunni army of 250.000 men.
Map Enemies and Allies of USA
The plan was that the Shia of Iraq and the Kurds would see the Americans as liberators, and the Americans would help them establish a western type democracy which would be envied by all the Muslims.
It seems simple right? You liberate some people, you give them their freedom, and you just expect them to like you. But this is the Middle East. The political elites are very very strong and very very very corrupt.
Map Kurdistan
The Iranians did not want the Americans to become allies of the Iraqi Shia. The Iranians were also using the Iraqi Shias against Saddam Hussein for decades. But of course the Iranians did not want the Americans next to them.
The Saudis did not want the Iraqi Shia governing Iran. The Saudis hated Saddam, but Saddam was keeping the Iranians away from them. And of course neither the Iranians nor the Saudis wanted the oil and gas of Iraq to start flowing to the international markets.
The Syrian Alawites of Bashar al Assad were very upset with the Iraq War, because they were also a ruthless minority which was ruling over a Sunni majority and the Kurds of Syria, and they thought they could be the next ones. That would be a huge problem for the Russians too. After all the Iraq is a road that leads to Syria.
Map The Plan of the Islamic State
The Turks saw the oil of Northern Iraq falling in Kurdish hands. As long as Saddam was ruling Iraq the Turks and Saddam were hunting the Kurds of Turkey and Iraq together, and Saddam was selling cheap oil to Turkey. Turkey could buy Saddam’s oil from Northern Iraq at very good prices because Saddam was an enemy of Iran and Syria, and very often economic sanctions were imposed on him by the West.
Moreover, by gaining control of the oil and natural gas of Northern Iraq, the Kurds could become stronger, and could ask for an independent Kurdistnan in Iraq, which could ignite similar aspirations to the Kurds of Turkey. The West wanted an independent Kurdistan since the First World War.
To reassure the Turks, President George Bush was referring to the Kurds of Turkey (PKK) as “our common enemy”. I don’t know if that was good enough for the Turks because the Kurds are communicating vessels, and the Americans were helping the Kurds of Iraq. Probably the American assurances weren’t good enough for the Turks.
All these countries started a “Holly” war against the United States in Iraq, and even though one would think that it would be a piece of cake for the Americans to create a democratic Iraq, this mission started looking more like science fiction.
Besides, a democratic Iraq, which would be envied by all Muslims, would be an embarrassment for the Arabs, the Iranians and the Turks, and it was the last thing they wanted.
Iraq in 2003 was for the Americans what Afghanistan was for the Russians in 1979. And Syria was in 2003 for the Americans what Pakistan was in for the Russians in 1979. In 1979 the Pakistanis thought that the Soviet presence in Afghanistan would endanger the Pakistani Pashtunistan, and they started letting in Afghanistan Islamists from all over the world to fight the Soviets.
In 2003 Assad in Syria thought that the Americans could turn against his own Alawite minority in Syria, once they were done in Iraq, and he started letting Islamists from all over the world to enter Iraq through Syria, in order to make Iraq a living hell for the Americans. All sorts of alliances were taking place in Iraq before the war. The Generals of Assad were cooperating with the Generals of Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein was talking to the Iranians, the Iranians were talking to the Arabs of the Gulf, and all these were talking to the Russians. Therefore there was quite a simple situation. It was everyone against the Americans and the Kurds.
In 2003 there was enthusiasm in the Muslim world like there was in 1979. All the good Muslims wanted to go to Iraq and kill crusaders.
Therefore even though it seemed a piece of cake for the Americans to find an ally in Iraq, since they liberated 85% of the population, a Jihad started in Iraq against them, financed with petrodollars, financed from both from enemies and allies of the United States.
The Turks did not allow the Americans to use their military bases to attack Saddam, and the head of Human Rights in Turkey said they Americans were committing genocide in Iraq, and he even compared them to Hitler.
Creating a democratic Iraq would be great for the Americans, and it would be great for the Iraqi people, but it would be too bad fro the Arabs, the Turks and the Iranians. As a result it did not come into being.