THE recent events in Iraq have become an eyesore for the Americans and their allies.
In a statement that showed frustration, President Obama said: “The United States has poured a lot of money into these Iraqi security forces and devoted a lot to train them.
“The fact they are not willing to stand and fight indicates a problem with morale.”
This follows the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham  (ISIS)’s advancement towards Iraq’s capital Baghdad and killing many people along the way, while the USA trained Iraqi forces are deserting and leaving ISIS to take control.
Here in the UK, the Iraqi crisis has also sparked anger against Tony Blair, who believes that the problems in Iraq have nothing to do with the 2003 USA-UK invasion of Iraq, which he masterminded with George Bush.
He blames the West for not bombing Syria last year when the Arab spring spread to Syria.
He also believes that the West should intervene with military action against both countries: Iraq and Syria!
“Instead, he blamed the West’s failure to bomb Syria last year – and called for fresh Western military action against both nations” (wrote the Daily Mail on June 15 2014).
There is something wrong with Tony Blair’s cooking, because it is a recipe for disaster.
Ironically he is the Middle East Peace Envoy, presiding over a troubled Middle East.
No wonder the once eulogised Arab Spring has turned into a very long and dreadful winter.
It’s like kurindisa mbudzi mudanga nemapere!
In Nigeria, too, Boko Haram is gaining momentum, killing people, bombing churches, abducting women and girls.
In Kenya a few nights ago, 50 people were killed by Islamic militants Al Shabaab as they watched a World Cup football match.
In Libya and Egypt there has not been any peace either.
Arabs are at war with each other.
Tony Blair has been criticised from all sectors, including his former Deputy PM Mr John Prescott and Claire Short, the latter who described him as a “complete American neocon.” (Daily Mail).
ISIS was formed in April last year and is one of the rebel groups fighting against President al-Assad in Syria although it is also accused of fighting against other rebel groups such as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the latter which is backed by the West.
But the question is who is supplying the militants with guns and ammunition?
There are two adage sayings I would like to refer to, “Kupembedza n’anga ichabata amai uroyi” and “Kurera imbwa nemukaka inofuma yokuruma.”
Both sayings of wisdom warn us not to be naïve and encourage us to be cautious.
However, the arrogant Americans and their allies thought that by arming rebels they would bring down leaders that they do not like and replace them with puppets.
That was the case in Libya and Syria.
But their arrogance to arm rebels has resulted in tonnes of guns and arms getting into wrong hands.
The guns have now found a smooth passage into Iraq, Nigeria, Mali, and Kenya, distablising these countries that may never be stable again.
On September 12 last year the CNN reported that weapons from the USA were now reaching Syrian rebels (to help them in their fight against al-Assad).
“The weapons are not American-made, but are funded and organised by the CIA. They started to reach rebels about two weeks ago, the official said…The supply of weapons was approved by Congress after the Obama administration asserted the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons on a small scale. But no progress toward physically supplying the rebels had been reported since then”, the news channel reported.
The EU had also promised to arm the rebels.
This was despite warnings from experts in foreign policy that the move would be counterproductive as the arms were likely to end in the wrong hands. Michael Shank (the Director of foreign policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation) in August 2013 commented: “The weapons will assuredly end up in the wrong hands and will only escalate the slaughter in Syria…Arming one side of Syria’s multi-sided and bloody civil war will come back to haunt us.
“Past decisions by the US to arm insurgencies in Libya, Angola, Central America and Afghanistan helped sustain brutal conflicts in those regions for decades.
“In the case of Afghanistan, arming the mujahideen in the 1980s created the instability that emboldened extreme militant groups and gave rise to the Taliban, which ultimately created an environment for al Qaeda to thrive.”

In 2011 the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) warned the British government against arming Libyan rebels in their quest to remove Muammar Gaddafi.
It said “Libya is already awash with weaponry, largely supplied to Colonel Gaddafi by the same European countries who are now providing air power to enforce a ‘no-fly zone’…Supplying arms to any group will increase future instability.”
CAAT was right.
The arms have ended up in Mali and Nigeria, destabilising the North and West Africa.
From his unmarked grave somewhere in the Libyan desert, Muammar Gaddafi’s words come back to haunt the Americans and their allies.
Warning them against arming rebels in a text read on Libyan television in March 2011, Gaddafi said, “If they continue, the world will enter into a real crusader war.
“They have started something dangerous that cannot be controlled and it will become out of their control.”
Indeed his words were true.
What would have happened to Zimbabwe if Tony Blair had bombed it? Southern Africa would be another war-zone now.
I don’t like UKIP at all, and their leader Nigel Farage, but I agree with him when he said that Tony Blair should take “an extended period of silence” because he is now “an embarrassment”.
In our African culture we would consider Tony Blair’s suggestion to bomb Iraq and Syria as someone whose soul is haunted by evil spirits, munhu agarwa nengozi.
Maybe the souls of those millions of Iraqis who died as a result of the invasion are now haunting him.