The United States should not be in the business of trying to save Iraq — because there really is no Iraq, according to Jed Babbin, former undersecretary of defense for President George H.W. Bush and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.
"There are no Iraqis. There are Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds and there is no one over there who really thinks of himself as an Iraqi first and any of those other categories second. It's always those first and maybe Iraq second," Babbin said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
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"There is no nation of Iraq. There really hasn't ever been. This whole exercise of trying to save the Iraqi government, I don't know why it's our business at this point. I really truly don't."
Babbin — co-author with David Goldman and Herbert London of
"The Sunni Vanguard: Can Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia Survive the New Middle East?" published by London Center for Policy Research — added:
"The Arab nations are supposed to defend themselves and they have the interest. We frankly don't. They are there. We are here. Why should we get back into this? Beats the hell out of me."
He said the United States cannot be responsible for keeping the entire world secure.
"The fact of the matter is we can't – it goes back to what my father used to talk about in 1958. We can't be the policeman of the entire world. It's time other nations pulled up their pants and get into the game and be responsible," Babbin said.
"The Arabs are indolent people. They do not really have the energy or the will to do these things. I just question whether it's our interest really to defend them.
"We can defend Israel. I don't see why we need to defend the Arab nations. They're so rich, many of them. They ought to be doing this themselves."
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