Eli5: how did America actually destabilize the Middle East in the Iraq war? What was done specifically that caused all of the chaos in the countries we were involved in?
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We sent our army into Iraq and took over the whole country. We shut down their old government and made many people unemployed all at once. We shut down their old army and fired all the army officers. All of a sudden Iraq was full of people who were used to power and had nothing to do. The people we put in control of the new government were inexperienced and many of them had not lived in Iraq for a long time. The new government system was an imitation of our system and many Iraqis didn’t like it. It was very weak and unable to control the country or provide safety for people. Many people started their own private armies (militias) to try to establish public safety in their areas, take over smuggling operations, and/or participate in politics. Iran and Saudi Arabia interfered in Iraq as well as we did, because of historical religious differences between Sunni and Shia Islam, and between Arab and Persian ethnic groups, which I’ll explain to you when you’re older. was always going to be a disaster. Our government in 1991 was smarter and didn’t take over Iraq completely, we stopped the first gulf war after Iraq gave up its takeover of Kuwait. We also put our army in other countries in the Middle East which a lot of people who live there don’t like. We also support governments such as in Egypt which aren’t popular among the people who live there and do terrible things to the people in order to stay in power.
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