It is a pattern for President Obama: posing as a peacemaker who ends the wars of the previous administration, while expanding the US use of force in areas the Bush gang could not have even imagined.
In Iraq, for example, a miniscule US humanitarian operation to rescue a small religious minority in Iraq — starting with just 20 troops — has transformed to another large-scale US war in the region. Two countries, Iraq and Syria, are regularly bombed by the US military. Billions have already been spent. No end is in sight and in fact escalation continues, as the president recently announced a doubling of US troops to Iraq.
Likewise, Afghanistan is getting its own stealth surge on Obama’s command. The New York Times is reporting that the president has recently secretly authorized a much more expansive role for the US military in Afghanistan for 2015. The president promised the American people that US forces in Afghanistan would have no combat role in 2015, but according to the Times the Pentagon objected to winding down the war citing the collapse of Iraq this year as reason to re-engage in combat.
The post-US occupation chaos in Iraq has been a win-win for the neocons, interventionists, and military-industrial complex, as their intense lobbying for the US invasion turned Iraq into a failed state which they then cite as reason for even more US intervention. Solve the problem by doing more of what caused the problem in the first place. It is a recipe for the continued enrichment of the arms manufacturers and their agents at the expense of the US economy.
Obama’s mission surge in Afghanistan was made possible by the election of the new Afghan president Ashraf Ghani in September. Ghani has embraced the US military presence in his country while his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, had turned sour on the 13 year US occupation of Afghanistan.
Long time Afghanistan expert and RPI Advisor Eric Margolis has contended that the recent presidential election in Afghanistan was “rigged” by the US government through the CIA. Karzai had refused to sign a new status-of-forces agreement with the United States guaranteeing US troops could remain in Afghanistan without fear of prosecution for their actions. By contrast, the US-backed Ghani approved the agreement with the US virtually as he assumed the presidency.
According to President Obama’s current plan, half of the 9,800 US troops currently in Afghanistan are scheduled to depart by end of next year. WIth the new surge on, does anyone want to bet on it?
