Obama's Disastrous Iraq Policy: An Autopsy

[planosteve]

The president ignored the country and its increasingly dictatorial prime minister for years.

For the Obama administration, however, tangling with Maliki meant investing time and energy in Iraq, a country it desperately wanted to pivot away from. A few months before the 2010 elections, according to Dexter Filkins in The New Yorker, “American diplomats in Iraq sent a rare dissenting cable to Washington, complaining that the U.S., with its combination of support and indifference, was encouraging Maliki’s authoritarian tendencies.”

When Iraqis went to the polls in March 2010, they gave a narrow plurality to the Iraqiya List, an alliance of parties that enjoyed significant Sunni support but was led by Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite. Under pressure from Maliki, however, an Iraqi judge allowed the prime minister's Dawa Party—which had finished a close second—to form a government instead. According to Emma Sky, chief political adviser to General Raymond Odierno, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq, American officials knew this violated Iraq’s constitution. But they never publicly challenged Maliki’s power grab, which was backed by Iran, perhaps because they believed his claim that Iraq’s Shiites would never accept a Sunni-aligned government. “The message” that America’s acquiescence “sent to Iraq’s people and politicians alike,” wrote the Brookings Institution’s Kenneth Pollack, “was that the United States under the new Obama administration was no longer going to enforce the rules of the democratic road…. [This] undermined the reform of Iraqi politics and resurrected the specter of the failed state and the civil war.” According to Filkins, one American diplomat in Iraq resigned in disgust.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... sy/373225/

[Bob Of Burleson]

True, Obama and U.S. policy in Iraq has been a disaster from beginning to end, but we can't be sure that another diplomatic tack wouldn't have led to just as big — or perhaps bigger — debacle. Maliki flubbed the dub. He bet the pot on an all-Shiite Iraq and is losing his thawb. I place more blame on him than Obama.

[GFB]

True, Obama and U.S. policy in Iraq has been a disaster from beginning to end, but we can't be sure that another diplomatic tack wouldn't have led to just as big — or perhaps bigger — debacle. Maliki flubbed the dub. He bet the pot on an all-Shiite Iraq and is losing his thawb. I place more blame on him than Obama.

We don't expect anything..nor should we..from foreign leaders..especially Muslim ones.

We count on our own leaders..and anyone beyond them is not relevant in any way to who we do or should hold responsible for world screw ups.

[Bob Of Burleson]

The United States does not run the world, and I'm not sure that it should. Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Rome, the British Empire and the rest of them didn't do such a great job of it.

[GFB]

The United States does not run the world, and I'm not sure that it should. Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Rome, the British Empire and the rest of them didn't do such a great job of it.

Rome did amazing..for an enormous amount of time..you need to study your Roman history.

The British did for a while, too..not sure about the other two.

Besides that, we did run Iraq..till Obama ran away..and Maliki did NOT want us to leave..OBAMA did.

[planosteve]

I hope people will read the whole article. It's fairly long. But, I think it correctly affixes the appropriate amount of blame to both Bush and Obama. And it proves that Colin Powell knew what he was talking about when he warned about the Pottery Barn rule. I thought it was the best thing I've read on Iraq.

[Bob Of Burleson]

The United States does not run the world, and I'm not sure that it should. Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Rome, the British Empire and the rest of them didn't do such a great job of it.

Rome did amazing..for an enormous amount of time..you need to study your Roman history.

The British did for a while, too..not sure about the other two.

Besides that, we did run Iraq..till Obama ran away..and Maliki did NOT want us to leave..OBAMA did.

"All the blame, in my view, rests with Maliki," said Michael Morell, the former deputy CIA director who now serves as a security analyst for CBS News. "He would not accept U.S. help, even behind the scenes, until recently, and he didn't keep the pressure on [ISIS]. You have to keep the pressure on the terrorist groups or they rebound quickly."

SOURCE

[GFB]

That's what WE were there for.

(CBS news and Bob agree..two Obama apologists...gee whiz)

[Bob Of Burleson]

That's what WE were there for.

(CBS news and Bob agree..two Obama apologists...gee whiz)

There you go, rewriting history again. I don't think I've EVER defended Obama, either on this board or the old one. However, you've said on numerous occasions that I have, therefore it must be so.

[GFB]

That's what WE were there for.

(CBS news and Bob agree..two Obama apologists...gee whiz)

There you go, rewriting history again. I don't think I've EVER defended Obama, either on this board or the old one. However, you've said on numerous occasions that I have, therefore it must be so.

"Maliki flubbed the dub. He bet the pot on an all-Shiite Iraq and is losing his thawb. I place more blame on him than Obama."

..apologist.

[GFB]

That's what WE were there for.

(CBS news and Bob agree..two Obama apologists...gee whiz)

There you go, rewriting history again. I don't think I've EVER defended Obama, either on this board or the old one. However, you've said on numerous occasions that I have, therefore it must be so.

"Maliki flubbed the dub. He bet the pot on an all-Shiite Iraq and is losing his thawb. I place more blame on him than Obama."

..that is jumping right to his defense.

"I don't think I've EVER defended Obama, either on this board or the old one."

[Bob Of Burleson]

Apportioning blame by degree isn't "jumping right to his defense."

[Bob Of Burleson]

Iraq PM Nouri Maliki rejects
calls for unity government

BBC.com

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has rejected calls for a national salvation government to help counter the offensive by jihadist-led Sunni rebels.

Such calls represented a "coup against the constitution and an attempt to end the democratic experience", he warned.

The US has led appeals to the country's political leaders to rise above sectarian and ethnic divisions.

Government forces have been unable to recapture the territory seized by the rebels this month.

Almost half of the 300 US military advisers assigned to help the Iraqi security forces have arrived and are to start work on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the crisis in Iraq is being discussed by Nato leaders meeting in Brussels. They have been joined by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who has just returned from a two-day visit to Baghdad and Irbil.

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