Where does Iraq and the Middle East go from here?

[Badassbab]

spurgeonryan said:

Badassbab said:
I think you'll find the US is a significant part of the problem, not the solution. The terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has increased greatly since the so called war on terror and the number of lives lost has been in the hundreds of thousands not to mention the trillion dollar plus in financial cost. But to really understand the issues you need to be going back decades and even back to WWI if you want to involve French, British and the Ottoman Empire (all of whom used to dominates parts of that region during the 20th century before the US became the dominate force there post WWII).

I can agree to an extent with what you are saying, but what do you expect people to do? Do we just let terrorism happen and just call it a criminal act done by someone not in our country? Well lets just hope the Afghan government will bring Bin Laden To justice for us.

There were plenty of documented studies carried out by the likes of RAND Corporation which gave an alternative to waging war. One way to massively minimise terrorist activity is to stop either directly or indirectly participating in it. In addition terrorism is a criminal activity and like all criminal activities it should be left to the likes of the FBI and their counterparts around the world (Interpol etc) to deal with and bring to justice i.e put the perpetrator on trial (if the wanted can be arrested saftely i.e no shoot out involved) based on the rule of law, due process and a fair civil trial.

The 'War on Terror' to many just looks like a front for increasingly US Hegenomy. It hasn't worked out very well, in fact it's done the opposite and has reduced US influence in the region. It's also been terribly inefficient at eradicating terrorism and has just made it much much worse.