Canadian Politics Today

"Won the wars"? surely you jest. They won nothing as both countries are in worse shape than they were prior to the invasions. In Iraq's case, (what was the reason for that one anyway)? they put in place a puppet government that was Shia and they in turn fired all Saddam's people who actually kept the lights on etc

Were you in favour of the apartheid like government before that, where the minority Suunis controlled everything and the majority Shia had no power?

I'll grant you the US screwed things up. They had this childishly naïve attitude about bringing in democratic rule. Democratic rule in the middle east doesn't work. Democracy requires compromise and Arabs don't do compromise very well, especially with those who have a different set of religious beliefs. So the government that got elected immediately started screwing over everyone else while raking in the cash for everything they possibly could, and appointing buddies with no military or police experience to high positions in the police and military.

How did ISIS take over so much of Iraq? Simple. The Iraq military, which was much bigger and better equipped, refused to fight. They broke and ran from far, far smaller groups, leaving behind all their equipment. If I recall right they lost Mosul when something like 10,000 Iraqi soldiers equipped with tanks, artillery and armored cars fled from a couple of hundred guys in jeeps and pickup trucks, leaving everything but their soiled underwear behind.

To a certain extent, they had the same problem in Afghanistan, stuck with a local president and his cronies who had little interest in ruling beyond self-enrichment. They should have found a suitable strongman for these jobs, put him in place, and let him clamp down on those who disagreed as he chose. There would have been far less blood in the end.