It was a lesson they may have learned from Churchill in WWII. Even as Britain was besieged, Churchill had sent most of Britain's tanks and other equipment to North Africa to keep the Suez Canal open, and thereby protect its supply of oil, and other commodities from the Empire. Without that supply Britain would be choked, and to the extent that it could deny those supplies to Germany, its efforts would be frustrated meaning it was dependent upon supplies from the USSR. The main strategic concern for the US since 1979, has been Iran, which has seen itself as a sub-imperialist power exercising its influence in the region. It is the role of Iran within the region rather than globally that has been the US's main concern. There is little evidence that Iran has played any significant role, for example, in promoting global terror, though the US would like to give that impression. In fact, global terror organisations have been almost all linked in one way or another with Al Qaeda, which is a Sunni organisation, backed not by Iran, but by those very Gulf regimes with, which the US has been allied.
But, in fact, the war against Iraq, rather than strengthening the strategic position of the US in the region weakened it. Its hard to believe that the military strategists within the US state would not have envisaged that. Iraq is a country with a majority Shia population, but which was run by a supposedly secular regime, that was, in fact, based upon its minority Sunni population. Removing the existing state was always going to open the door to sectarian conflict, and the formerly repressed minority population switching places with its oppressors, as has happened elsewhere, for example, in Kosovo. Given the connection between the Shia population of Iraq, and that of Iran, and given the centuries old sectarian rivalry within the Middle East between Shia and Sunni, it was almost inevitable that the main beneficiary of this would be Iran. Again, its difficult to escape the belief, therefore, that the Iraq War was more a vanity project by the Bush government and the neo-cons, than a thought out strategic goal by the US state.
With the Sunni minority looking under serious threat, the US had to switch its emphasis, under pressure from the Gulf Monarchies, who declared that they would not allow them to be subjugated. The US essentially partitioned the country into Shia, Sunni and Kurdish territories, physically erecting barriers along the lines of those in the North of Ireland of previous times, to separate communities. The Kurds, have already essentially separated from Iraq. But, the Iraqi Government has become increasingly sectarian, and closer to Iran. Given the relatively small populations of the Sunni Gulf states compared to the Shia populations of Iran, Iraq and Syria that continues to be a problem for those states.
Having lost ground in Iraq, the US needed to bolster its alliance with the Gulf states, which make up for their small population with their extremely large, and sophisticated arsenal supplied by the US, as well as the presence of the US fleet stationed in Bahrain. Once again, very little is heard about the activities of the minority Sunni regime in that country, which backed by Saudi Arabia, daily murders its citizens to suppress their protests. A central aspect of that alliance, and the need still to deal with Iran, has been the support provided for jihadist forces in Libya and Syria, where the existing regimes were not reliable allies of imperialism. The overthrow of Assad, and a revival of a jihadist Sunni insurgency in Iraq, are vital preliminaries to removing support for Iran within the region.
Yet, such a strategy is fraught with danger. In both Syria and Libya, despite drawing forces from all over the globe, and despite having the latest weapons provided by the Gulf states and the US, the jihadists proved themselves incapable of winning. In Libya, it was only massive bombing by imperialism, and more importantly, the intervention of significant numbers of special forces on the ground, which turned the tide. The experience of Libya has prevented the US and its allies from obtaining the cover of a UN resolution for a “No Fly Zone”, to directly intervene openly in Syria. As I suggested some time ago - Whither Syria? - the consequence has been that the carnage has simply grinded on with no prospect of either side winning, whatever winning would mean in this context. And, as I said there, the consequence has been that the initial basis of the Syrian people's uprising has disappeared, and the opposition has simply become a reactionary, jihadist insurgency.
But, as Libya demonstrates, wars have their own dynamic. The jihadists having secured a bridgehead in Libya, have shown no gratitude to their US and European backers that helped them into power. They sacked the US Embassy in Benghazi, and killed its Ambassador. The US should not have been surprised. They created Osama Bin laden and Al Qaeda to fight the USSR in Afghanistan only to find him turning on them, and blowing up the World Trade Centre. The jihadists from their Libyan bridgehead then moved on to Mali, causing France to have to intervene.
It must have occurred to the US that given this history, once the Sunni jihadists secured control in Syria, especially as clerical-fascists in Egypt, and Tunisia were being pushed in a more extreme direction, and even the Sunni Muslim regime in Turkey was showing signs of wanting to reclaim its Ottoman heritage, with its increasing hostility towards Israel, as it sought to be the leader of the region's Sunni Muslims, that this would pose an existential threat to Israel itself. Yet, the US seemed to be prepared to risk that in order to boost its alliance with the Gulf Monarchies, and to undermine the allies of Iran.
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