None of them are good, and all of them will be viewed by history as attributable to Obama’s desire to “end” rather than win the war in Iraq.
33 thoughts on “If Baghdad Falls To IS”
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None of them are good, and all of them will be viewed by history as attributable to Obama’s desire to “end” rather than win the war in Iraq.
Comments are closed.
Personally, I don’t think Obama wants to do anything to prevent ISIS from taking Baggers. I don’t believe he sees a downside to that.
You know, I thought he was going to be a terrible president. I didn’t think he was going to be this terrible. If Baghdad falls, the US hegemony falls. Sure, it’ll probably fall eventually anyway, but this hustles the end forward a few decades real fast. And because of the November election, ISIS probably still has a three week window to make it happen, assuming Obama moves right after the elections end.
I don’t see the minor players in the area like the remnant of the Syrian government, the Kurds, or some of the weaker countries in the area (particularly, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) holding up. That leaves it up to the bigger regional players like Turkey, Iran, Egypt, or Israel. Several of those countries have ideological counterparts who might ally with this group.
Along the same lines, the NYTimes is shamelessly lying about the rational for the Iraq War in 2003, claiming the only rational was to destroy an active WMD program, so the actual WMD stockpiles found during the war really weren’t the weapons they were looking to find. Whatever stockpile that was never found may land in ISIS hands now, and that’s a mistake Bush left Obama. It is a ridiculous claim by the NYTimes, and as such they should be ridiculed for making it.
And they play games with where the WMD came from. We did help Iraq with a WMD program when they were fighting Iran but that fact is twisted to claim that all the WMD really came from us. There is a chain of contradictory claims they make:
– The WMDs found actually came from us.
– The WMD shells really came from other countries not the USA.
– All of the WMD found date back to the 80’s
– Except those from the 90’s
– Iraq hadn’t made WMD since the 80’s
– The WMD shells were based on American designs
– The roots of the WMD found were American even if they literally were not American
They also claim the chemical weapons were so old that they lost their potency but then go off on the tragedy of people being hurt by them. Some of the missiles even had “full slosh” or whatever of Sarin. By the end, they mention thousands of missiles and thousands more artillery shells stashed around the country. They even mention that WMD was under reported because of the danger of waiting for a disposal team and the bureaucratic hurdles to jump through and that there are likely more hidden caches.
Also note that one of the precursors of binary sarin is a pesticide in 1% mixtures. But we did find (and document) drums of concentrate. Roughly a 100 year supply of ‘pesticide’. Hidden.
The other piece of the binary mixture is isopropyl alcohol.
The dry ‘binary shells’ were also documented. “Well, but they’re -dry’”.
Rand,
While I agree that Obama’s foreign policy has been feckless at best, I don’t think “winning” was one of the realistic options in Iraq. Even if Obama had lost the 2008 election to McCain, and we had found a way to keep troops there, the country would still be an unstable, bloody, hell-hole. Maybe better, but also maybe just as bad as it is today. Acting as though Obama snatched defeat from the jaws of victory here is silly. He did find a way to fail that makes us look particularly pathetic, but I doubt that even our most competent Presidents could have “won” the situation in Iraq–just found a draw or a failure that wasn’t quite so glaringly ugly.
~Jon
Note, I’m not saying that the article you linked to is wrong. I actually agree with it. Pat Lang was pointing out the likelihood of our Embassy being cut off for several months now on his blog. Ironically, the one escape route may have to be through Iran, since ground routes to Kuwait aren’t safe anymore.
~Jon
“…………I don’t think “winning” was one of the realistic options in Iraq. ”
You are welcome to your opinion…but you cannot know that and you cannot predict the future.
But what we DO know is that at the point in time that Obama became President, we had “won”.
And we know that now we have “lost”.
We know the situation is far worse now than it was in January 2009.
You are welcome to your doubts about what other Presidents may or may not have achieved, but even Obama can learn…he’s keeping residual troops in Afghanistan.
Residual troops helped in Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy. Just as you cannot predict how it would have gone in Iraq had we kept troops there, I cannot say with authority that had we bolted from Germany, Korea and Japan after the wars were over, they they would have fallen into bloody hellholes.
But we stayed; they didn’t.
We left Iraq and cut off Vietnam and they turned into bloody hellholes.
No choice is guaranteed to work. But we do have serious experience here.
We won in Iraq because we had created a sovereign, independent and freely-elected government. (This was not the stated goal of the invasion – the stated goal was to destroy an ongoing WMD program. Ongoing as opposed to a truckload of shells somebody lost in their system.)
We left because that very same sovereign, independent and freely-elected government of Iraq would not allow us to remain on anywhere near the same terms and conditions we operate on in the other dozens or so other nations we have bases.
We remain in Afghanistan because the sovereign, independent and freely-elected government of Afghanistan would like us to remain. We remained in Germany, et. al. because they weren’t free and sovereign – they were occupied. Once they eventually gained their freedom, they then asked us to stay.
Regardless of the fate of Baghdad, the bottom line is that this is an Iraqi problem, not an American one. The people of Iraq need to decide their own fate, not the US.
“We left because that very same sovereign, independent and freely-elected government of Iraq would not allow us to remain on anywhere near the same terms and conditions we operate on in the other dozens or so other nations we have bases.”
The level to which you are uninformed is quite astonishing.
” the stated goal was to destroy an ongoing WMD program. ”
No, at the time, it was claimed they could restart their program at any time and that they were not verifying their current stockpiles. The same precursors removed from Syria that Obama claims as a WMD success story were removed from Iraq as well.
“Ongoing as opposed to a truckload of shells somebody lost in their system.”
The WMD caches were not lost in the system. They were deliberately hidden.
“We left because that very same sovereign, independent and freely-elected government of Iraq would not allow us ”
Wrong. Maliki wanted us to stay. Our people assigned to sit in the negotiations have said that Obama failed to even negotiate. They have asked for our help several times since then as well. Obama, like so many other times before and since, blamed someone else for his own actions.
“We remain in Afghanistan because the sovereign, independent and freely-elected government of Afghanistan would like us to remain. ”
We remain because Obama scheduled the troop pull out at a future date. We will remain after that date because the Afghans asked us to stay and Obama saw what happened in Iraq when he didn’t stand by our friends. Obama had no intention of leaving troops in Afghanistan, even if the Afghans wanted. They have been calling for a US presence after the withdrawal date for a long time. Obama only recently conceded and allowed troops to remain. Less than 10k troops will be in Afghanistan.
“Regardless of the fate of Baghdad, the bottom line is that this is an Iraqi problem, not an American one.”
I disagree. Iraq is an ally and we wouldn’t abandon Canada to foreign invasion and genocide so we shouldn’t abandon Iraq either just because Democrats don’t like Bush. This has foreign policy implications in a couple of areas.
The main one is our global struggle against AQ, its affiliates, and other Islamic militants. We already fight AQ all over the globe, why not Iraq where the danger from them is the greatest? All of our efforts in Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Mali, and other countries would be drastically set back by allowing the formation of an Islamic State caliphate. We will have a hard time getting moderate Muslims not to support the caliphate if we can’t even support our ally in Iraq. If we can’t save our friends from genocide, why would a Syrian rebel group or theocracy like Saudi Arabia fight against AQ and its affiliates?
The second, is our efforts to pivot to Asia and deal with Russian resurgence. How can we make assurances to the Philippines, Taiwan, or ex-soviet countries that we will help them fight off Russia or China when we wont even help our allies fight off genocide? They know that under Obama and maybe future presidents, that we will not honor our commitments and that we will break our promises and China and Russia will know that too.
Also, this really is partly our problem because of our actions in Syria, Libya, and other Arab Spring countries where we sided with Islamic militants to overthrow governments. The invasion of ISIS out of Syria is directly related to the civil war there. A war our actions and inactions have exacerbated.
How many hundreds of thousands of people have to be crucified, beheaded, and sold into slavery because Obama wont help clean up the mess he helped make?
Wrong. Maliki wanted us to stay. Our people assigned to sit in the negotiations have said that Obama failed to even negotiate. So the same Maliki that told Der Spiegel in 2008 “Iraq can learn from Germany’s experiences, but the situation is not truly comparable….Today, we in Iraq want to establish a timeframe for the withdrawal of international troops — and it should be short.”
And
“It is a fundamental problem for us that it should not be possible, in my country, to prosecute offences or crimes committed by US soldiers against our population. But other issues are no less important: How much longer will these soldiers remain in our country? How much authority do they have? Who controls how many, soldiers enter and leave the country and where they do so?”
Really wanted Americans to stay? If you believe that, please send me an email – I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn.
2008 wasn’t 2011 and the statements Mailiki made in public were in conflict with what he told our State Department. Go read the articles about the revelations made by State Department negotiators about events that transpired years after your quote. Or even go read recent articles with the Iraqi government asking for American help.
And I will point out that Afghanistan has always wanted a sustained American presence and that Obama, until just recently, was more than happy to throw the entire country to AQ and the Taliban regardless of what Afghanistan wanted.
In both countries, what mattered most wasn’t the desire of the people of those countries and American interests also mattered little. What mattered most was how Obama could use these countries for his own petty political ambitions. Obama said he would end the war in Iraq, not win it, and that potential genocide wasn’t a reason to keep troops in the country. Obama got exactly what he wanted.
Just like Obama is leaving the Kurds twisting in the wind. Just like Obama left Libya twisting in the wind. Just like Obama will leave any Syrian rebel group we train twisting in the wind. For all the talk about human rights and the suffering of the Iraqi people, Democrats and Obama don’t really care about the things they claim to.
This was not the stated goal of the invasion – the stated goal was to destroy an ongoing WMD program.
Umm, just quoting here from the AUMF for Iraq 2002:
SEC. 2. SUPPORT FOR UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS.
The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by the
President to–
(1) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security
Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq
and encourages him in those efforts; and
(2) obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security
Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay,
evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies
with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) Authorization.–The President is authorized to use the Armed
Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and
appropriate in order to–
(1) defend the national security of the United States
against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council
resolutions regarding Iraq.
Seems the goal was to protect the national security of the United States and enforce all relevant UN Security Council resolutions. I could go through all the resolutions, but many of them call for Iraq to certify it had no chemical weapons, and by the recent admission of the NYTimes, Iraq never provided that certification because it indeed had chemical weapons. This whole nonsense about ongoing is adding some qualifier that neither existed at the time or is defined in a way that makes logical sense. After all, what difference, at this time, does it make if Saddam was making additional WMD or just retaining the WMD he already possessed? What he had was already weaponized and stored in armament ready for battle. If that is not true, then the NYTimes is lying about WMD being found in bombs and artillery shells. It is possible the NYTimes is lying about that as well, but at least other sources that provided details at time corroborate the claim that WMD was found in bombs and artillery shells during the war.
Gregg,
making sense to someone who says we never set out to win, is a waste of your typing time. I agree with everything you said, but an awful lot of people think we never meant to win, it was about oil, it was about W’s ‘daddy’, it was about stuffing Haliburton’s pockets.
If you ask the military, from E-1s to O-7, 8, 9’s, THEY were in there to win. Both my sons went, neither came home with pockets filled with oil, glory or thanks from George H. W. Bush for defending his honor.
” Both my sons went, neither came home with pockets filled with oil, glory or thanks from George H. W. Bush for defending his honor.”
Bush never thanked the military? There are a lot of good criticisms of Bush but this isn’t one of them.
“an awful lot of people think we never meant to win, it was about oil”
1. how were we going to appropriate the oil if we didn’t win?
2. More importantly, the fact that gas isn’t a buck or less a gallon is pretty much proof it wasn’t about oil, and everyone who ever said it was should apologize and shut up about it.
If the USA really was going to go to war to steal oil, then they would have driven the tanks ten hours north from Montana and taken the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta. Much shorter supply lines.
“we had found a way to keep troops there, the country would still be an unstable, bloody, hell-hole.”
I disagree. Iraq wasn’t a bloody hell-hole when Obama took over. There was still some violence but it was at much much lower levels and it wasn’t directed at American troops. Iraq was unstable, as any newly formed government in a country without a tradition of self governance would be. It was unstable because they were infants working to create democratic government institutions and they needed help to stay on track.
Leaving troops would have helped. It would have helped potentially fight off a resurrection of ISIS, which was destroyed and driven back into its safe haven in Syria only to see it rise from the chaos of the Syrian civil war. A civil war exacerbated by Obama’s policies. He had a lot of influence there without taking us to war. But troops are for more than fighting. They would have given us leverage with the Iraqi government diplomatically.
Obama, rightly so, pointed out problems with the Iraqi government but he did this six years in without ever bothering to try and solve these problems. It sided with Iran when we pulled out. It looked after the Shia to the detriment of the Sunni. The Kurds were on their own. Government agencies were as corrupt as ours are under Obama. The military ceased to be based on meritocracy. These were all problems to be addressed through diplomacy even though Obama would look like a hypocrite for telling Iraq not to run their government so similar to how he runs ours.
“Acting as though Obama snatched defeat from the jaws of victory here is silly.”
Well, he did. Had there not been a civil war in Syria, Iraq would be on the same track as it was in 2009 or 2011. ISIS isn’t a domestic uprising. They came back from death by fighting against their former patron, Assad. Muslims from around the globe flocked to Syria and joined a multitude of jihadist groups. These groups were either destroyed or assimilated by ISIS. Only a couple other major factions exist and all largely share the same goals as ISIS. Even though we didn’t go to war in Syria over red lines, we had enormous influence over events.
But troops are for more than fighting. They would have given us leverage with the Iraqi government diplomatically.
So you believe that:
1) The Iraqi government wanted us to leave troops, and
2) Leaving troops would have given us more leverage over the Iraqi government
Do you really think Maliki wanted us to have more of a say in the way he ran Iraq?
Maliki’s top priority was Shiite supremacy, and his policies made the Sunni regions of Iraq ripe for ISIS’s picking. It can’t be the job of the U.S. to save other foreign governments from their self-destructive choices.
It can be when the result of that self-destructive choice is the rise to power of a new declared enemy of the U.S.
Exactly, it isn’t like we don’t have a history with or interests in Iraq. We aren’t meddling in the city council of Rome.
“1) The Iraqi government wanted us to leave troops, and
2) Leaving troops would have given us more leverage over the Iraqi government”
Yes and why do you think those are mutually exclusive?
1) The Iraqi government wanted us to leave troops, and
2) Leaving troops would have given us more leverage over the Iraqi government
Yes.
Do you really think Maliki wanted us to have more of a say in the way he ran Iraq?
Last I checked Maliki wasn’t the only person in Iraq. And the US presence would have been a counterweight to Maliki and his schemes.
So if Iran wanted to base troops in the US as a counterweight to President Obama’s schemes, you’d be okay with that?
If a nation is so unstable that foreign troops are needed to be a counterweight to the ambitions of the head of government, you have a failed state. So, no, by your own admission, we did not “win” in Iraq.
“So if Iran wanted to base troops in the US as a counterweight to President Obama’s schemes”
What? Is anyone talking about basing troops in Iran? I guess you meant Iraq, a country we went to war with, which is why we had troops there and why we were working with Iraq to develop good government and rebuild their country. Troops in Iraq would give us influence with all Iraqi groups and could have been used to help Iraq fight off an array of threats, with invasion of AQ out of Syria to form a caliphate as just one.
“If a nation is so unstable that foreign troops are needed to be a counterweight to the ambitions of the head of government, you have a failed state.”
No, you have a recently formed an immature state. Leaving troops there was an insurance policy against an uncertain future, to show our commitment to Iraq, and to give us influence. But Obama never was committed to the welfare of the Iraqi people. Which is why when the fighting was done, he never took up the diplomatic tasks to insure Iraq’s continued success.
“So, no, by your own admission, we did not “win” in Iraq.”
But you think we won right? Because that is what you said earlier…
So if Iran wanted to base troops in the US as a counterweight to President Obama’s schemes, you’d be okay with that?
The US is a mature society with one of the oldest governments around. It doesn’t have a need for the same external stabilization that an eight year old government, imposed from the outside, would need. Further, Iran doesn’t have a common interest in a stable or democratic US unlike the US with Iraq.
Mark this date on the calendar, folks, for today I agree with Jim about something.
“It can’t be the job of the U.S. to save other foreign governments from their self-destructive choices.”
The US government should look after American interests. A case can be made that in some instances, the US government’s actions in service to American interests may involve saving other foreign governments from their self-destructive choices, but that’s a happy side effect and shouldn’t itself be the purpose.
Nonetheless, I really like the line Jim wrote above. Allow me to modify it somewhat:
“It can’t be the job of the U.S. taxpayer to save other American citizens from their self-destructive choices.”
The words are only slightly different, but the principle is exactly the same. If one statement is true, then so is the other.
If he follows the logic behind his own statement to its natural conclusion, Jim will suddenly discover himself a libertarian.
“The US government should look after American interests. ”
A successful Iraq is in our country’s interests on soooooo many levels. Failure in Iraq, isn’t in anyone’s interests but the Caliphate’s. That some people want us to fail isn’t born out of a desire to protect American interests.
Fall of Baggers to the ISIS? What about the two million or so Shias there? They have guns and they certainly didn’t display a lot of hesitation about bopping the Sunnis during the worst phase of the civil war there back in 2006-2007.
Having these two groups fighting each other again in Iraq isn’t really good for anyone. Better that ISIS is stopped before it becomes an all out religious war rather than just one side fighting for a caliphate.
“Symbolism doesn’t matter much to your average post-modern Westerner…”
Unless it’s on a ball cap, t-shirt or tattoo.
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“We are already seeing jihadist groups gravitating towards ISIS, such as the announcement this week by Pakistani Taliban leaders pledging their allegiance to the Islamic State.”
Until it’s time to name the Caliphe, then it’ll be the Iran / Iraq War all over again, for 1500 miles in every direction, going out from Baghdad.
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“…there are now more than 1,100 US service members in Baghdad protecting the embassy and the airport.”
Break out your copy of, “The 10,000 Day War”, and jump to the last disc, April 30, 1975.
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“The potential propaganda value of ISIS capturing Baghdad with U.S. weapons will be enormous.”
It’s on that SAME disc as above.
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“The fall of Baghdad will herald an unparalleled sectarian war in the Middle East…”
After Saigon, after North Viet Nam gloated, the weaklings in Cambodia, thought they could recreate the Khmer Empire, which set off mass murders in Cambodia, death, destruction and war across much of S.E. Asia, ALL under the umbrella of Communism.
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“Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it,”
George Santayana
Oddly, the Smartest Guy in the Room, who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, just never heard this line before. And he sure as hell never read a book about Nam, much less any other history.
” And he sure as hell never read a book about Nam, much less any other history.”
Neither did Jim … who cannot imagine that a leader would give up some power/control for a little safety. It’s only happened 10’s of thousands of times across history. You’d think he’d trip over one or two. But then, You’d have to read a little..just a little…in order to learn.