Now it looks like Prime Minister al-Maliki might have decided not to step down as PM, bringing in special forces loyal to him into Baghdad, along with army units. Deployed into the Green Zone and blocking bridges between east and west Baghdad, it looks like he is unwilling to step down. The new Iraqi President, a Kurd, is supposed to pick a new PM and he has yet to do so. With these moves, it looks clear to me that the reason he hasn't picked a new PM is that al-Maliki is telling him he won't leave. Ain't that grand? You have a military force of madmen rampaging across the country, killing hundreds, displacing thousands of innocent people whose only crime is that they have different religious and ethnic backgrounds than these lunatics prefer, the country teeters on the brink to total chaos, the country's largest dam has just been captured by the fanatics, a dam which was built in the wrong place and needs constant maintenance to prevent its failure, a failure that would put Mosul and Baghdad under several meters of water, and this clown is making moves to seize power. Wonderful. Just wonderful. http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/10/world/meast/iraq-baghdad-tensions/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Sure we had over 1000 Americans in Iraq, but no ground forces, most of those you mention were embassy employees. Had we kept a permanent base of 30 or 40k soldiers, airmen, and marines, ISIS wouldn't have been much of a problem in Iraq because they'd have been crushed fairly quickly, keeping them on the Syrian side of the Border. More importantly, keeping a force there would have given the new government the stability it needed to build up Iraq into something of a success story. Instead, it's a disaster. I'm not going to blame any one president or whatever because the argument that it was wrong to go into Iraq can be placed at one president and the decision to completely blunder the war in Iraq can be placed on another. Even more than that, it's the fault of the American people because all he was doing was pandering to the polls. The American people said to abandon the Iraqi people prematurely, Obama listened to them.
Still, there is nothing to say that ISIS wouldn't have become a threat in Syria still and engage U.S. troops in battle and caused casualties. It's way to early to say leaving was a mistake. Don't know what will happen in Iraq yet.
The idea that the US would have destroyed ISIS if only we had troops there is fantasy - ISIS stems from an ideology and killing the foot soldiers is like playing whack a mole. If you plop a huge permanent US military base down in a country that doesn't want you there that you claimed you were liberating instead of occupying, you are reinforcing everything ISIS is claiming and only will enhance their recruiting. The US would have had as much success destroying ISIS as Israel has had destroying Hamas over the last couple of decades. You're trying to use logic of a conventional war against a conventional army on an unconventional enemy.
Bigger picture, the right side is winning the hearts & minds battle. While the Muslim world doesn't necessarily like the US, support for Al Qaeda and things like suicide bombings are at post 9/11 lows. ISIS is basically hated by everyone. AQ is isolating itself more and more as it's affiliates do crazy things. The reason for all this is that these groups are now killing fellow Muslims instead of fighting the west. In the larger struggle within the Muslim world and the internal fight that has to be fought, this is all good news, even though ugly and destructive in the short term. At the end of the day, it's the ideology that needs to be defeated, and that can only be done from within. Killing all the foot soldiers we can doesn't change the long-term trajectory of that war. And I guarantee you if the US had a military base in the heart of the Middle East (and without the support of the host country), these terrorist groups would be garnering a whole lot more sympathy and support within the Muslim world by focusing all their energy fighting the "evil imperialist Americans" instead of their fellow Muslims.
You spelled Bush wrong......there is no I.....no R....no A....and no N in Bush..... For someone who 'knows' so much about the politics in that region.......you should know that President Bush wanted Maliki in power.....despite the state department and advisors objecting over and over again. Bush trusted this fool even when Generals on the ground advised against it. He is not a Iranian proxy..........he is an enemy of Saddam that bolted.......and Bush gave him the keys to the city. He is a Bush stooge..... You know better bro.......or maybe not....
There is supposedly another similar case in Chicago and the FBI is involved. The guy told the officials of the Houston center to recognize their caliphate and declining it would be reported. To the person that asked if ISIS has uniforms. This guy appeared to be wearing one with big letters (ISIS) on the front of it. A picture was making its rounds. Let me see if I can find it.
Most likely they would have focused their energy on Syria because toppling Assad would have been the more possible goal for them. Could there have been American casualties? Sure, but Iraq would be a stable place and would be getting stronger every day, instead it's a disaster. I'll take these two at once, what do you think the US soldiers who were in Iraq were doing the whole time they were there? Putting down organizations like that so as to give the new government stability. Sure there would have still been an IS group in Syria, but it wouldn't have spread to Iraq had we still been there. If they launched an offensive, it would have been crushed which would greatly reduce their strength allowing Assad to wipe out the rest of them (and probably the whole rebel movement) in Syria. At most they could launch small attacks on the border. Either way, Iraq would be whole, and stable today had we stayed. You can't build Iraq into something worth a damn without stability.
Er... You do realize that Bush has been out of office for about 6 years, right? Bush - and many others - misjudged Maliki early on. OPbama continued to misjudge him for years afterwards. This dude is 100% in the Iranians' pocket at this point. It's well documented; he has made several visits to Iran and has an IRGC general advising him. If you'd like to know a bit about Maliki and are unafraid to click on a treeman link and actually learn something, see here: http://www.stripes.com/opinion/why-we-stuck-with-al-maliki-and-lost-iraq-1.292338 There's a good chance it will be the most informative thing you read on this topic today, if you aren't afraid to click on it.
I have no problem supporting actual good guys over there, but the questions need to be asked: 1) to what end, 2) is it effective / worth it, 3) what are the risks? At this point, it appears that the "good" rebels in Syria have zero chance of ever winning the war. Either the Assad regime or ISIS will win (or, more likely, the territory will be split between the two with the "good" rebels eventually disappearing). If that is the likely case, then is sending them weapons a good ides? What's the point? I look at as a case of settling for the lesser of two evils. Personally I would MUCH rather have Assad win out than ISIS. I would rather see us let the Russians / Iranians assist Assad and win in order to defeat ISIS, as ISIS represents an existential threat to most of the region and a direct eventual threat to the West. Warts and all, we can deal with Assad, we can't deal with ISIS. So what would any intervention there really accomplish? Very well, here is your evidence: CIA begins weapons delivery to Syrian rebels http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-begins-weapons-delivery-to-syrian-rebels/2013/09/11/9fcf2ed8-1b0c-11e3-a628-7e6dde8f889d_story.html The Big Weapons that the U.S. May Be Secretly Supplying to the Syrian Rebels http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/25/the-big-weapons-that-the-u-s-may-be-secretly-supplying-to-the-syrian-rebels.html Congress secretly approves U.S. weapons flow to 'moderate' Syrian rebels http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/27/us-usa-syria-rebels-idUSBREA0Q1S320140127 The vast majority of ISIS's weapons are almost certainly from seized stocks - from the Syrian and Iraqi armies and from other Syrian rebel groups they have been fighting. But we have been funneling weapons into the region, and that is always a dicey proposition. You can never really 100% vet the guys you are sending them to, and once they have them you lose all control over who ultimately ends up with them. This is particularly disturbing once you start talking about MANPADS... ISIS/AQI ahs been operating on both sides of the border for a while - that is part of what makes it so difficult to destroy. Assad can't chase them into Iraq and Maliki can't chase them into Syria. The fact that they are able to operate in both arenas is a strength of theirs, and eliminating their ability to operate in one would severely restrict their ability to operate in the other. As I said before, there are never any guarantees in war, but you go with what is most likely (or at least, you should). But it takes time to build a civil society and develop a political tradition in which rule of law is respected. It certainly can't be done in less than a decade in that environment. And your argument is effectively "Eh, Iran will always be there, so why bother - let 'em have it". That will not turn out well. No, it's a silly question. No one was ever talking about staying in Iraq indefinitely - there have always been timetables attached. As I've said several times, the Pentagon had a target date of 2017. Maybe SHTF and that gets pushed back to 2020. So what? It would be worth it. Indefinitely? No, of course not - we aren't staying anywhere but the USA "indefinitely" - not even Germany, Japan, Korea, etc - at some point those missions will end. But for a few more years, long enough to stabilize the joint? Yeah, you bet, because as I said when we pulled out: we will get sucked back in anyway if we leave too soon. And that's exactly what happened. You're better off staying and doing it right than leaving for domestic political purposes before the job is done. Becausd it's not a region we can run away from, try as we might.
I was talking about staying in Iraq indefinitely, and by indefinitely I meant "for an unspecified period of time", not necessarily permanently, but potentially permanently if that's what conditions called for. In fact, I'd be fine with moving almost completely out of Germany and into Iraq. Now, I'm not going to lie, getting PCS orders to Iraq would suck....but a lot of PCS orders suck. No one is happy about finding out their next station is Korea either.
When I said "no one" I meant no one in the policy making establishment - no elected officials, pentagon, State, etc. You know, the people whose opinions actually matter.
I think Mr. Obama would have tended toward pull out on his own. We spent billions on billions training and arming the Iraqi army for just this type of threat. You can't keep doing that forever and some point a foreign expedition needs to be a success or not. The American taxpayer is not a bottomless pit for Iraq.
Fair enough you're free to believe that and blame Bush for what Obama previously took credit for, but there really was a choice. He could have negotiated a deal to keep troops there, or just decided to keep them there on his own. He chose to pull them out, then he chose to take credit for it as if it was a personal accomplishment. Those were choices.
I don't blame Bush, and I don't credit Obama. The parameters of what happened and how long we stayed were not exclusive to either, or exclusive to the United States. I think Bush set up the deal because he did not want history to judge him for getting the US involved in a war without end, Mr. Obama ran as the opposition party, so he opposed keeping up the massively expensive (ultimately futile) exercise in Iraq. Mr. Maliki was both consolidating his popularity in Iraq by not allowing the US to dictate terms and promoting the Iranian/Shia majority rule over the other factions by removing the American push for pluralism. The lack of immunity was just the last straw. “This is the way the world ends…not with a bang but a whimper”
So allowing the situation in Iraq to completely deteriorate into a situation where we'll have to go back is essentially no one's fault then right? Couldn't be helped, we had no choice but to completely blunder things in Iraq after things started to get stable, is that about right?
That is a distinct possibility but as your own articles show the US was very late in supplying weapons to the moderate factions in Syria when things might've made a difference. That is also a possibility but again if the US had fully backed the Syrian moderate opposition there is the possibility that both Assad and ISIS are defeated. That said if you are willing to allow Assad and the Iranians to wipe out ISIS in Syria why not rely on the Iraqi Shiites and Iranians to wipe out ISIS in Iraq? Why would it have been necessary for US troops to have stayed there to do the job? I will agree that the US is sending arms but as your links note it is largely small arms. The article regarding heavier weapons is somewhat speculative since it is noted these are secret shipments and also that the CIA is being very cautious who those weapons get to. Anyway the articles point out that these weapons shipments have been very late in coming and given the amount of success that Assad and ISIS has had probably are too late to tip the balance. Yes that is a possibility and will agree that US weapons have likely fallen into the hands of ISIS. My point though is that what aid the US has provided might be too little too late. Except the US staying in Iraq wouldn't have been able to chase them into Syria either. So in other words an indefinite period of time in Iraq. Iran is a fact unless you are also advocating either a permanent US presence in Iraq to counter Iran or taking out Iran. "Indefinitely" doesn't mean permanent. It means that there is no specific time for ending of an event. You are saying that the US should stay indefinitely since there is no way of knowing for certain when things will be stable enough to leave. Your last sentence is practically a call for staying permanently. Anyway you are still side stepping the question. Would you personally be willing to continue serving in Iraq indefinitely?
