Well regardless, we spent over a trillion dollars and lost 6000 soldiers looking for something that doesn't exist. Not sure how you can get around that. Many democrats were for it. Obama was not and knew exactly what a disaster it would be. Gotta give credit where it's due. If you have integrity to do so though.
I never knew Republicans were so sympathetic towards Islam. Maybe you guys are the real liberals, lol. Willing to spend trillions of dollars and thousands of lives to help an Islamic country out! You guys are the best philanthropists out there. Kudos, might actually register as a republican soon.
6 REASONS OBAMA LOST IRAQ
by BEN SHAPIRO 13 Jun 2014
77 8POST A COMMENT
As hundreds of thousands flee before the onrushing Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist army, media defenders of the Obama administration are rushing to prop up the ailing Obama foreign policy.
“Who lost Iraq?” writes the Washington Post’s Fareed Zakaria. “Whenever America has asked this question – as it did with China in the 1950s or Vietnam in the 1970s – the most important point to remember is: the local rulers did.” Joy Reid of MSNBC blamed former President George W. Bush by implication: “it’s this unpleasant recent history that helped set the stage for the bloody events that we’re seeing in Iraq right now.” And Democratic Governor of Rhode Island Lincoln Chafee went after Bush directly: “These neocons [neo-conservatives] all through the ’90s were talking the importance of regime change in Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, the strongman. I just didn’t understand stirring up the hornets’ nest that is the Middle East. It just never made any sense to me, and now we’re seeing some of the ramifications of having deviated from our Cold War containment strategy.”
The reality, however, is that neither weak local rulership nor the rationale for the Iraq war in 2003 explains just why the country has fallen back into chaos. After all, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been in power since 2006; he has been incompetent and corrupt since day one. President Obama’s attempt to suggest that only tremendous leadership by al-Maliki can achieve victory is a plausible way of punting. And Bush has been out of office since 2008.
Nor was Iraq unwinnable. The same pundits who state that Vietnam and China were unwinnable wars forget that by 1973, Vietnam had been won, and that Mao had been defeated long before World War II, but was brought back into the fold by the United States in the aftermath of the defeat of Japan. United States foreign policy matters.
President Obama is responsible for the collapse of security in Iraq. Here are the six top reasons why.
Pulling Troops Out of Iraq After The War Was Won Left a Power Vacuum. By 2008, President Bush’s surge in forces had achieved large-scale security in Iraq. In November of 2006, 3,475 Iraqis died in battle and 69 Americans were killed as well; that number was down to 500 and 12, respectively, by November 2008. Violence in Anbar province had dropped 90 percent. As leftist Peter Beinart wrote in 2009 in theWashington Post, “if Iraq overall represents a massive stain on Bush’s record, his decision to increase America’s troop presence in late 2006 now looks like his finest hour.”
In 2008, the Bush administration negotiated a status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government that would remove troops by the end of 2011. Bush signed that agreement in anticipation of Obama’s entry to the White House. Sure enough, Obama then failed to sign a renewed status of forces agreement. According to David Filkens of the New Yorker:
[E]very single senior political leader, no matter what party or what group, including Maliki, said to them privately, we want you to stay. We don’t want you to fight. We don’t want combat troops. We don’t want Americans getting killed, but we want 10,000 American troops inside the Green Zone training our army, giving us intelligence, playing that crucial role as the broker and interlocutor that makes our system work. We want you to stay.
Filkens told NPR that James Jeffrey, an American ambassador, said he “got no guidance from the White House.”
Now there is no stabilization force in Iraq. And with an ISIS force that is merely hundreds large, according to some reports, rushing through Iraq with impunity, it is difficult to argue that even a minor force wouldn’t have made a difference.
Pulling Troops Out of Iraq Allowed Al-Maliki’s Sectarianism to Dominate. Al-Maliki was, as noted, always a disaster area. But America’s presence prevented him from using his power to dominate the Sunni minority in Iraq and forge close ties with Iran. Filkins points out, “Time and again, American commanders have told me, they stepped in front of Maliki to stop him from acting brutally and arbitrarily toward Iraq’s Sunni minority.” Then, he writes, “the Americans left,” and everything went to hell in a handbasket:
In the two and a half years since the Americans’ departure, Maliki has centralized power within his own circle, cut the Sunnis out of political power, and unleashed a wave of arrests and repression. Maliki’s march to authoritarian rule has fueled the re-emergence of the Sunni insurgency directly. With nowhere else to go, Iraq’s Sunnis are turning, once again, to the extremists to protect them.
The Leader of ISIS Was Released by The Obama Administration. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, leader of ISIS, was in US custody in Camp Bucca, in Iraq. He was released in 2009 when the US shut down the camp in anticipation of the end of US presence in the country.
Enabling Iran. Al-Maliki has turned to Iran in this crisis. And why not? The United States is nowhere to be found, and al-Maliki’s radical anti-Sunni policies make him a popular man with the mullahs. Not only that – President Obama has surrendered all pretense at holding Iran accountable throughout his tenure, from abandoning the Iranian opposition in 2009 to signing an empty-headed nuclear deal with the mullahs last year to leaving Iranian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad untouched after Assad used chemical weapons against civilians. Iran is now the regional power. Which means that Iraq itself will now become a proxy war in which America loses either way: either ISIS wins, or the Iranians do.
Contributing to Syrian Chaos. Focusing on Israel instead of Syria, then arming the Syrian opposition while refusing to do anything after Bashar Assad’s gassing of civilians, President Obama has contributed to a chaotic situation that facilitated ISIS’ rise in Syria. ISIS plays both sides of the aisle. On the one hand, they want to break away from Assad’s regime; on the other hand, they are saving their ammunition for use against erstwhile allies who don’t want an Islamist state.
ISIS began working in Syria in 2009 as an anti-Assad, al Qaeda-associated rebel faction. A few years later, the Obama administration began shipping arms into the country. One of the great concerns with the situation in Syria has always been the capacity for weaponry to fall into the wrong hands. While the Obama administration has claimed that it has the perfect ability to follow the weaponry, that is doubtful at best – and ISIS has been seizing warehouses of weapons.
Now the Obama administration, including President Obama, claims that it is busily vetting the Syrian opposition to which America has shipped arms. On Sunday, National Security Advisor Susan Rice explained, “the United States has ramped up its support for the moderate vetted opposition, providing lethal and non-lethal support where we can to support both the civilian opposition and the military opposition.” Meanwhile, ISIS is grabbing US humvees in Iraq itself.
Caving All Over The World. Ukraine. Afghanistan. The Palestinian Authority. Fear of the United States is passé, because there is simply nothing to fear. ISIS knows this; so do the Iranians. The only true fear is the fear of our allies, who now know better than to trust a United States that will abandon them at the worst possible time.
Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book,The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration(Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org.Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.
by BEN SHAPIRO 13 Jun 2014
77 8POST A COMMENT
As hundreds of thousands flee before the onrushing Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist army, media defenders of the Obama administration are rushing to prop up the ailing Obama foreign policy.
“Who lost Iraq?” writes the Washington Post’s Fareed Zakaria. “Whenever America has asked this question – as it did with China in the 1950s or Vietnam in the 1970s – the most important point to remember is: the local rulers did.” Joy Reid of MSNBC blamed former President George W. Bush by implication: “it’s this unpleasant recent history that helped set the stage for the bloody events that we’re seeing in Iraq right now.” And Democratic Governor of Rhode Island Lincoln Chafee went after Bush directly: “These neocons [neo-conservatives] all through the ’90s were talking the importance of regime change in Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, the strongman. I just didn’t understand stirring up the hornets’ nest that is the Middle East. It just never made any sense to me, and now we’re seeing some of the ramifications of having deviated from our Cold War containment strategy.”
The reality, however, is that neither weak local rulership nor the rationale for the Iraq war in 2003 explains just why the country has fallen back into chaos. After all, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been in power since 2006; he has been incompetent and corrupt since day one. President Obama’s attempt to suggest that only tremendous leadership by al-Maliki can achieve victory is a plausible way of punting. And Bush has been out of office since 2008.
Nor was Iraq unwinnable. The same pundits who state that Vietnam and China were unwinnable wars forget that by 1973, Vietnam had been won, and that Mao had been defeated long before World War II, but was brought back into the fold by the United States in the aftermath of the defeat of Japan. United States foreign policy matters.
President Obama is responsible for the collapse of security in Iraq. Here are the six top reasons why.
Pulling Troops Out of Iraq After The War Was Won Left a Power Vacuum. By 2008, President Bush’s surge in forces had achieved large-scale security in Iraq. In November of 2006, 3,475 Iraqis died in battle and 69 Americans were killed as well; that number was down to 500 and 12, respectively, by November 2008. Violence in Anbar province had dropped 90 percent. As leftist Peter Beinart wrote in 2009 in theWashington Post, “if Iraq overall represents a massive stain on Bush’s record, his decision to increase America’s troop presence in late 2006 now looks like his finest hour.”
In 2008, the Bush administration negotiated a status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government that would remove troops by the end of 2011. Bush signed that agreement in anticipation of Obama’s entry to the White House. Sure enough, Obama then failed to sign a renewed status of forces agreement. According to David Filkens of the New Yorker:
[E]very single senior political leader, no matter what party or what group, including Maliki, said to them privately, we want you to stay. We don’t want you to fight. We don’t want combat troops. We don’t want Americans getting killed, but we want 10,000 American troops inside the Green Zone training our army, giving us intelligence, playing that crucial role as the broker and interlocutor that makes our system work. We want you to stay.
Filkens told NPR that James Jeffrey, an American ambassador, said he “got no guidance from the White House.”
Now there is no stabilization force in Iraq. And with an ISIS force that is merely hundreds large, according to some reports, rushing through Iraq with impunity, it is difficult to argue that even a minor force wouldn’t have made a difference.
Pulling Troops Out of Iraq Allowed Al-Maliki’s Sectarianism to Dominate. Al-Maliki was, as noted, always a disaster area. But America’s presence prevented him from using his power to dominate the Sunni minority in Iraq and forge close ties with Iran. Filkins points out, “Time and again, American commanders have told me, they stepped in front of Maliki to stop him from acting brutally and arbitrarily toward Iraq’s Sunni minority.” Then, he writes, “the Americans left,” and everything went to hell in a handbasket:
In the two and a half years since the Americans’ departure, Maliki has centralized power within his own circle, cut the Sunnis out of political power, and unleashed a wave of arrests and repression. Maliki’s march to authoritarian rule has fueled the re-emergence of the Sunni insurgency directly. With nowhere else to go, Iraq’s Sunnis are turning, once again, to the extremists to protect them.
The Leader of ISIS Was Released by The Obama Administration. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, leader of ISIS, was in US custody in Camp Bucca, in Iraq. He was released in 2009 when the US shut down the camp in anticipation of the end of US presence in the country.
Enabling Iran. Al-Maliki has turned to Iran in this crisis. And why not? The United States is nowhere to be found, and al-Maliki’s radical anti-Sunni policies make him a popular man with the mullahs. Not only that – President Obama has surrendered all pretense at holding Iran accountable throughout his tenure, from abandoning the Iranian opposition in 2009 to signing an empty-headed nuclear deal with the mullahs last year to leaving Iranian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad untouched after Assad used chemical weapons against civilians. Iran is now the regional power. Which means that Iraq itself will now become a proxy war in which America loses either way: either ISIS wins, or the Iranians do.
Contributing to Syrian Chaos. Focusing on Israel instead of Syria, then arming the Syrian opposition while refusing to do anything after Bashar Assad’s gassing of civilians, President Obama has contributed to a chaotic situation that facilitated ISIS’ rise in Syria. ISIS plays both sides of the aisle. On the one hand, they want to break away from Assad’s regime; on the other hand, they are saving their ammunition for use against erstwhile allies who don’t want an Islamist state.
ISIS began working in Syria in 2009 as an anti-Assad, al Qaeda-associated rebel faction. A few years later, the Obama administration began shipping arms into the country. One of the great concerns with the situation in Syria has always been the capacity for weaponry to fall into the wrong hands. While the Obama administration has claimed that it has the perfect ability to follow the weaponry, that is doubtful at best – and ISIS has been seizing warehouses of weapons.
Now the Obama administration, including President Obama, claims that it is busily vetting the Syrian opposition to which America has shipped arms. On Sunday, National Security Advisor Susan Rice explained, “the United States has ramped up its support for the moderate vetted opposition, providing lethal and non-lethal support where we can to support both the civilian opposition and the military opposition.” Meanwhile, ISIS is grabbing US humvees in Iraq itself.
Caving All Over The World. Ukraine. Afghanistan. The Palestinian Authority. Fear of the United States is passé, because there is simply nothing to fear. ISIS knows this; so do the Iranians. The only true fear is the fear of our allies, who now know better than to trust a United States that will abandon them at the worst possible time.
Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book,The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration(Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org.Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.
so what? If you jump off a 5 story building by yourself with no one around or if there are a few of your buddies on the roof with you cheering you on, its still a stupid fucking idea,
Not if I’m wearing a parachute.
Now to more serious answers.
Are Americans safer today? Do they like us more in Iraq today? What was accomplished? It was a waste and anyone could have told you it would be a waste before any boots hit the ground. Occupy a country in the middle east for over a decade? Ya real brilliant.
Are Americans safer today? I believe we are. At least we’re more aware.
Do they like us more in Iraq today? I don’t know and more importantly I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned with the exception of Israel all of the countries in the Middle East have not evolved. They are still in the Cro-Magnon era. (Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t we have this discussion in another thread?)
It was a waste and anyone could have told you it would be a waste before any boots hit the ground. Occupy a country in the middle east for over a decade?
What should of happened was a residual force should have remained rotating in and out much like in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. Not only would the ISIS not have taken over but when the time comes to deal with Iran we would be right next door.
Ya real brilliant. It would have been had it been handled properly.
I was going to post something that started with this premise, and then argue both sides of it
I just didn't know which thread to place it in. But the end and only important part of the post would have stated (and I just don't know why so many on this site insist on arguing over what has already occurred)..... What do we do now?!?!
And why is everyone here, especially Guesser, always so sure the course of (in)action to take? I'm not trying like so many in here to win a damn argument! The most important thing is this -- Here we are now in June of 2013. Can we, America afford to allow this group (ISIS) to gain a foothold in the Middle East? What will hurt America more, allowing extremists and savage terrorists to overtake swaths of land and topple governments in the Middle East? Do we really believe we can isolate and insulate our nation to what comes next?
I'm not saying I know the answer. The rest of you are always so sure, wanting to knock another poster down or whatever. This wouldn't be an easy call for even a competent president let alone this easily outwitted buffoon. The alternative sucks as well. We'd be fighting for a wannabe dictator who sidelines opposing parties from participating in the government, and for Iranian interests as well.
It is funny how the Stuttering Clusterfuck has been lying to Americans about how "war and terrorism is receding" when everyone but the most rabid leftist knows the opposite is true.
"Responsible plan to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan" :neenee:
Like everything he says, it's all political bullshit.
Everywhere you look, all around the world, war, bloodshed and terror is on the rise. From Syria and Iraq; to Libya, Afghanistan and the Ukraine. All on the Stuttering Cluskerfuck's watch. All because of the power vacuum which now exists because this moron doesn't know how to lead and make competent decisions.
Can't wait till his next feckless "line in the sand" while our enemies laugh and our allies (what's left of them) shudder.
"Responsible plan to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan" :neenee:
Like everything he says, it's all political bullshit.
Everywhere you look, all around the world, war, bloodshed and terror is on the rise. From Syria and Iraq; to Libya, Afghanistan and the Ukraine. All on the Stuttering Cluskerfuck's watch. All because of the power vacuum which now exists because this moron doesn't know how to lead and make competent decisions.
Can't wait till his next feckless "line in the sand" while our enemies laugh and our allies (what's left of them) shudder.
The US is sending an aircraft carrier and two guided missile ships into the Persian Gulf, bolstering sea and airpower before a possible US strike on the jihadist army in Iraq in the coming days.
Defense secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the USS George HW Bush into the Gulf on Saturday, a day after President Barack Obama indicated he would soon decide on air strikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis), whose seizure of Sunni Iraqi cities has violently upended the region.
The 103,000-tonne warship and its air wing, which had been patrolling the North Arabian Sea and earlier this year were used in the Mediterranean following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, gives Obamaairstrike options in addition to air force assets on land in bases used by the US, like Qatar's al-Udeid.
The Bush's air wing includes four squadrons flying F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, one squadron flying EA-18 Growler jammer and electronic-attack planes, and other maritime helicopters and early-warning planes.
Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the Bush would be accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the guided-missile destroyer USS Truxton. The ships are expected to arrive in the Gulf this evening.
Kirby described the deployment as increasing Obama's martial flexibility"should military options be required to protect American lives, citizens and interests in Iraq", rather than signalling an imminent strike.
In a briefing on Friday, Kirby had played down the possibility of the Bush moving into the Gulf, saying only that it was ready for a potential tasking. "As we speak right now, there is no aircraft carrier zorching [speeding] into the Persian Gulf," he said.
While Iran has in the past harassed US ships moving into the Gulf, its president, Hassan Rouhani, on Saturday indicated openness to working alongside his country's decades-old adversary, signalling an alignment of interests in protecting their mutual Iraqi partner.
"If we see that the United States takes action against terrorist groups in Iraq, then one can think about it," Rouhani told reporters, according to Agence France Presse.
Iraqi officials told the Guardian on Saturday that Iran had sent 2,000 advance troops across the border to help the Shiite government of Iraq defend itself after the Iraqi army ran from Isis in Mosul this week. In a move unthinkable during the Saddam Hussein era, Iran has sent the commander of its feared Qods Force, General Qassem Suleimani, tocoordinate the defense of Baghdad.
US intelligence and defense officials consider Suleimani to have American blood on his hands, as the Qods Force and the Revolutionary Guards Corps to which it belongs are suspected of attacks on US troops during the Iraq war, including the placement of sophisticated and deadly bombs.
Obama's contemplation of air strikes against Isis creates the prospect of US air power bolstering Iranian ground operations, an awkward one given the animosity the militaries of the two nations, which are currently engaged in negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, have long felt for each other.
The State Department did not immediately respond to queries about US and Iranian forces possibly fighting alongside one another by default in Iraq.
On Friday, Kirby urged Iran to "play a constructive role" in Iraq.
I was going to post something that started with this premise, and then argue both sides of it
I just didn't know which thread to place it in. But the end and only important part of the post would have stated (and I just don't know why so many on this site insist on arguing over what has already occurred)..... What do we do now?!?!
And why is everyone here, especially Guesser, always so sure the course of (in)action to take? I'm not trying like so many in here to win a damn argument! The most important thing is this -- Here we are now in June of 2013. Can we, America afford to allow this group (ISIS) to gain a foothold in the Middle East? What will hurt America more, allowing extremists and savage terrorists to overtake swaths of land and topple governments in the Middle East? Do we really believe we can isolate and insulate our nation to what comes next?
I'm not saying I know the answer. The rest of you are always so sure, wanting to knock another poster down or whatever. This wouldn't be an easy call for even a competent president let alone this easily outwitted buffoon. The alternative sucks as well. We'd be fighting for a wannabe dictator who sidelines opposing parties from participating in the government, and for Iranian interests as well.
Scotty, no matter what happens from here on out it will be a lose, lose situation for us.
Solution? I’ve got one but you’re not going to like it.
It's called leadership. It is about time someone step up and stop blaming. Our president is very intelligent but his lack of leadership (and history will show) has created the most inept administration in history. Blame Bush.....fine for the first 2 years but enough already. We will be paying for these mistakes for many years to come.
The most transparent administration in history? Read my lips cost Bush 41 his job. Child's play compared to this guy. Embarrassingly enough I supported this guy in 2008.
It's not blaming when you are stuck with one of the worst wars in American history. It's simply stating the facts. There was no easy way out of this. Just dishonest to blame Obama for what's happening in Iraq. He knew it would be a disaster from the beginning. Now he has to take it and be the bad guy. No reason to lose more troops over that cesspool that will never be cured. Republicans are very dishonest people with no integrity whatsoever.
