First Gulf War
@NightTrain: As advertised 
You stated in so many words we should "finished the job" and taken out Saddam Hussein in 91. Yes, accomplished the mission, but in your opinion, we should have taken out Saddam then.
Why not: there would have been no First Gulf War had GHWB not agree to OPECs conditions. We were conducting a training exercise called Desert Shield. We weren't there for any other reason until it morphed in Operation Desert Storm.
GHWB had to agree to only remove Iraq's army from Kuwait. In return, coalition forces had unrestricted use of Arab airspace. We got to use Incirlik AB in Turkey and Turkish airspace in support of removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait. In order for any air assets from Europe to get to Northern Iraq, we needed that. Damned Turks half-threatening to take permission away every day 
They were a pain in the ass.
We still have an air base in Bahrain. We have a base at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We have compounds for ships in Jebel Ali and Abu Dabi, UAE. We got those bases as part of not violating their conditions.
Since taking out Saddam was never a goal and in fact by agreement was not a consideration, there was no "unfinished" job. Aside from everything else, I personally would not have been happy with us nt keeping our word. A deal's a deal.
Strategically, Saddam was the joker in the deck in the Middle East. Yes, I know he was a POS scumbag that deserved to die. Big picture-wise, he was a Nationalist dictator that sat right between the shia and sunni (Saudi Arabia and Iran). It was predicted that if we removed Saddam it would create a power vacuum between Saudi Arabia, Syrai and Iran. The one thing Erdogan has ever said that is right is we DID upset the balance in the Middle East by removing Saddam.
In that regard, I DID support winning in Iraq since we went in. Going in, as stated above, was the wrong thing to do. We had Saddam contained. We also already had an open front in Afghanistan. You don't unnecessarily open a second front. That's what cost Hitler WWII. You just don't unless you have to. Iraq was not a have to.
The sunni and shia in Iraq are both proxies for Iran and Saudi Arabia. No telling what Turkey has done to the kurds. Civil war in Yemen.
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke
Reply With Quote
