>over a million dead >back to pre-war status quo after

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>>1532468
>Was there a more pointless war in history?

Operation Iraqi Freedom

>>1532468
World War One, duh!

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>>1532468
Was just another proxy-war, one that was pretty similar to WWI in terms of mass wave attacks and the extensive use of gas. Had some really fucked up tactics such as child suicide squads as well as flooding marshes, then electricuting the water as troops went to pass.

In the long run it arguably strengthened Iran, as the new Islamic republic has a common cause to unite the people rather than infight
In the long run it fucked Iraq as they were broke and decided pull shit such as the Invasion of Kuwait, that their ally the US didn't approve of. Arguably linked to what has happened in Iraq since and the long term effects it's still causing now in the Middle East.

>>1532493
At least that brought about a lot of change: new nation states emerged, borders moved, monarchies fell etc. Sure, most of these changes sucked for most people, but at least there were winners at the end of the conflict, unlike in the Iraq-Irani war.

>>1532548
Have you not seen the state of Iraq recently and the instability across the Middle East? Arguably all originated from the after effects of this war m8.

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>>1532563

>I've made a huge mistake

Iraq was a mistake

I don't even see most of those "nations" as real states. They're like the nation equivalent of a McMansion.

>>1532656
They're not, placing groups who have hated and killed each other for centuries and drawing a line around them is never going to fucking work.

>>1532675
It's entirely artificial. People talk about "instability" in these nations as if they were ever stable or built on solid foundations. The organization of these countries is something not done by the people, but by outside interests. They're effectively colonies that have been turned into autonomous polities, is it any wonder they can't govern for shit?

>>1532686
I completely agree, I do believe 'Neo-colonialism' is real despite what some say. The same can be seen in Africa also.

>>1532675
>>1532686
The fact that the borders were drawn up almost arbitrarily after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire doesn't help. The bad feeling in the Sunni/Shia divide can't be undrestimated, fundamentalists on both sides blame the other for the death of their prophet.
Then you have the fact that Kurds, Yazidis, et al. were never given a nation of their own, and hence get oppressed and killed by their neighbours, who see their views as heretical and blasphemous.

It's a total clusterfuck.

>>1532730
Same can be said about Africa also, nearly all major colonial border divides have been terrible to say the least. No surprise at all that these are the two regions in the world that are always the most unstable.

>>1532468
What was pointless about it? Saddam wanted to take the river even though legally it was never Iraq's in totality and started the war against Iran to annex it, ultimately the status quo was that Iraq failed in its objectives.

>>1532656

>Iran isn't a real state

Iran and Turkey are probably the only two "real states" in the entire Middle East, the retarded jagged borders of both countries is a testament to that.

>>1532656
Iran has remained consistently defined as a "nation" geographically speaking for centuries if not millennia. If it wasn't for those Qajar fucks they'd still have Azerbaijan, Dagestan and Georgia as well as Afghanistan and Tajikistan too.

>>1533067
What is so particularly "jagged" about their borders? I agree that Azerbaijan should be part of Iran though.