Defenders of Washington’s various military interventions in the Muslim world carefully ignore the many damaging effects of those crusades. Proponents of the Iraq war, for example, disregarded warnings that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would likely heighten instability in Iraq and the wider region. That clearly has been the outcome, yet some analysts still defend the invasion and occupation as beneficial, while greatly downplaying the unpleasant side effects.
The same is true regarding the enormously destabilizing aftermath of U.S. meddling in Libya and Syria. Both of those once-stable countries have degenerated into arenas of bloody chaos. Members of the foreign policy blob and their allies in the establishment news media have tried to pay as little attention as possible to such tragic results, especially since Washington has moved on to other international priorities.
A similar pattern has begun to emerge now that U.S. troops are out of Afghanistan after their failed 20-year counterinsurgency and nation-building mission in that country.
One especially negative legacy of Washington’s attempt to export democracy to the Muslim world through regime-change wars has been the emergence of a steady refugee crisis. At the time of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, the BBC reported that there were more than 3.5 million internally displaced refugees and an additional 2.2 million people who had fled the country entirely. The situation in Iraq following U.S. intervention is equally appalling. Some 9.2 million people were internally displaced or had left the country by 2021, according to a study by the Watson Institute at Brown University.
Nearly 1 million Libyans have been displaced from their homes since NATO’s 2011 air war that helped overthrow Moammar Gadhafi. Some Libyans have escaped the worst of the fighting among rival factions and found shelter elsewhere in the country. However, tens of thousands of migrants have tried to make… Source www.19fortyfive.com
