How The U.S. Enabled The Collapse Of Iraq

Iraq is descending into chaos. Our leaders would have you believe that it is because we left. This excuse couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, American arrogance in assuming we could tame the region led to the fall.

Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a man who never met a war he didn’t like, has found a strange alliance with Democratic President Barack Obama. Both pro-interventionist politicians are now mulling the idea of joining forces with Iran, who now is apparently graduating from it’s role as monster of the month.

This is a trend in American foreign policy.

Americans haven’t forgotten the devastating attack on September 11, 2001, and those who attacked us that day. Al Qaeda under Osama bin Laden committed an enormous terrorist attack against our country that claimed many innocent lives.

While we will never forget this attack and who committed it, many have forgotten who legitimized the radical Islamic fighters that attacked us that day.

Under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, the United States spent billions of taxpayer dollars arming, training, and funding the Afghan mujahideen. The goal of this operation was to repel the Soviet occupiers, without regard for the longterm implications of legitimizing a rogue force.

Everything was going smooth until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that presented the potential of Saddam Hussein entering Saudi Arabia. The United States entered the conflict, occupying the Holy Land and angering those mujahideen fighters armed, trained, and funded by the United States Government. In 1996, Bin Laden issued a fatwa against the United States due to the occupation.

For those of you keeping score, that is the same Saddam Hussein who the United States assisted militarily against Iran in the eighties.

Iran had to be stopped though, according to propaganda of the day. Like militant religious radicals and Iraq, there was even a time when Iran wasn’t on Uncle Sam’s naughty list. After Iran’s democratically elected government moved to nationalize it’s own oil supply, a coup d’etat was instigated and strengthened. This resulted in the rise of the theocratic dictatorship that has been problematic ever since.

Iran is frightening and potentially nuclear, according to the propaganda of yesterday. Suddenly, this image has softened as our pro-war politicians ponder another entangling alliance, this time with Iranian boogeyman.

Wrap your head around this: The United States is seeking an alliance with Iran, bad guy of yesterday who was created because democracy was a threat to our oil interests. This Iranian pact is being sought because of the radical Islamic fighters, who were once receiving billions of dollars from the United States Government that armed and trained them. These Islamic fighters are waging a war for Iraq, a country that was once ruled by a firm and stable ruler who kept the extremist activity to a minimum, until he was overthrown in an unjust invasion.

Soldiers are dying because our foreign policy makes no sense. This does not bother the heartless politicians who continue to involve our military in these scenarios that burn us increasingly as the years pass by.

Iraq is collapsing and everybody is flocking to the arena. Nobody is more thankful that the United States of America keeps committing blunder after blunder than those extremists we oppose.



Interventionism is a total, unequivocal failure.

Chris Dixon

About Chris Dixon

Chris Dixon is a libertarian-leaning writer and managing editor for The Liberty Conservative. In addition to his political writing, he also covers baseball for Cleat Geeks and enjoys writing on a number of other topics ranging on Medium.