Our victory in the Mexican American War added a huge amount of land to the U.S. and introduced issues of property rights and confiscation. This produced some of the consequences we see in our Southwest today. The Irish immigration following the potato famine led to longstanding issues in our immigration policies. Immigration also became a major factor leading to the Civil War.
All posts by suzanne
Collective Amnesia in the Immigration Debate (1)
From the beginning, our national debate about immigration has been extremely political. You might be surprised by some of the issues about illegal immigration on our border with Mexico and the first attempt to close the border to stop immigration. Here’s the story.
Unlikely Bedfellows in Syria
Syria, like other Middle East nations, is an artificial state. It’s made up of a multiplicity of ethnic groups with little in common and a Sunni majority ruled by Alawite Shias. This potent mix is vastly complicated by the arrival of Russian tanks, artillery, and troops. The danger of accidental collision should not be ignored. The Turks, who control the water supply, have their impact. So do the Sunni Kurds and the Jordanians, who are extremely anti-Isis. Oddly, Iran, Hezbollah, and Israel are on the same side on this one–not working together, but sharing strategic objectives. What a mess!
Syrian Refugee Crisis Backstory (4): Civil War and Chaos
Civil war starting in 2011 creates a power vacuum in northern Syria that attracts Saddam’s former key strategists, who begin working with ISIS to regain Sunni power. As factions and nations take sides based on their own competing interests, Syria becomes fragmented. ISIS uses the power vacuum to pursue its goal of establishing a totalitarian Islamic caliphate. Chaos and fighting touches off the Syrian migration to Europe that we see today. Here’s a bit more detail.https://youtu.be/j7azThPm8WY
Syrian Refugee Crisis Backstory (3): How Iran Gets Involved
How did Iran get involved? Bashar al-Assad seemed promising early on, but Syria’s incursion into Lebanon changed that. The unraveling we see today started there, but went on to engage Iran in bolstering Shia control, with both the U.S. and Israel playing a role. Here’s the basic plot.
Syrian Refugee Crisis Backstory (2 ): Rise of the Assad Dynasty
Where did ISIS come from? Syria became ripe for ISIS as the Sunni majority was marginalized by the Assad regime. The Sunni Muslim Brotherhood believed that Islam was the only answer to Syria’s problems and that violence was the only viable tactic. Assad squashed all opposition, but the seeds of ISIS were sown and ready to spring up when his son came to power. Here’s the story in brief.
Syrian Refugee Crisis Backstory (1): Rise of the Assad Dynasty
How did the migration of Syrian refugees become such a crisis? It helps to understand the bankruptcy of the Ba’ath party, the failure of Pan-Arab nationalism, and the rise of the Assad dynasty. Here’s a synopsis.
The Iran Deal
The purpose of my blog is to provide some historical context and/or comparison for what may be in the news recently while staying away from partisan politics. That’s pretty hard to do in the current political climate.
I’ve been reading a lot about the Iran deal. So much to say! Let’s start with the background to Iran’s nuclear buildup. It appears that the Iranian regime got serious about developing a nuclear program out of fear of the invasion of Iraq–that the U.S. meant what it said about imposing democracy in Iraq as a model for the other authoritarian regimes in the Middle East.
The historical roots go deeper than that. When the U.S. and its allies removed Saddam from Iraq, President Bush encouraged the Shia and Kurds to revolt. They did and Pres. Bush had second thoughts about helping them since it could dismantle Iraq.
So, Saddam could proceed to decimate the Kurds and the Shia. The U.S. and others acted with no fly zones to aid the Kurds successfully, but stood by while Saddam eviscerated the Shia and proceeded to drain their water lands turning it into a desert.
Those Shia who could get out went to the only place offering refuge–Iran. Iran took good care of them. Not surprisingly this encouraged the Sia refugees to be receptive to seeing the U.S. As the Great Satan.
When the U.S. Invades again and decides to hold free elections, it was a given that a Shia coalition would win. Who might they look to for support?
Food for thought.
What If We Attack Iran?
I wish people who make foreign policy recommendations without having the responsibility of carrying them out would think through the what if’s and weigh the intended and unintended consequences. Someone asked, “What would happen if we attack Iran?” Here’s my 3-minute speculation. (recorded June 14, 2015 in the car on the Ohio Turnpike)
Why We Have to Control the Persian Gulf
As we drove the Ohio Turnpike near Cleveland on Sunday, June 13, I thought about Oliver Hazard Perry’s naval victory in Lake Erie and how that connects to the necessity of controlling the Persian Gulf. Here’s the 3-minute summary Suzanne recorded while I drove.