Well now we see the results of our President leaving Iraq. The mission wasn’t complete but when one only cares about his re-election, about himself to be more accurate, then completing the mission doesn’t enter into the equation.
And the Iraqi’s are paying for our President’s selfish behavior:
A wave of bombings ripped across Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing at least 63 people and injuring almost 200 in the worst violence Iraq has seen for months. The bloodbath comes just days after American forces left the country.
The blasts also came on the heels of a political crisis between Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite factions that erupted this weekend.
The political spat has raised fears that Iraq’s sectarian wounds will be reopened during a fragile time when Iraq is finally navigating its own political future without U.S. military support.
Without our backing this country WILL disintegrate. But Obama based his decision to pull out because of politics, not the future of the Iraqi people.
And those thousands of American troops will have died in vain.
A leading Iraqi politician has accused the country’s prime minister of acting like Saddam Hussein in trying to silence opposition, saying he risks provoking a new fightback against dictatorship.
Iyad Allawi — a former prime minister who leads the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc — also claimed the United States had pulled out its troops “without completing the job they should have finished.”
Allawi said that the current premier, Nuri al-Maliki, had used fabricated confessions to demand the arrest of the country’s Sunni Muslim vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi.
…Iraq sits on a sectarian, Sunni-Shiite faultline that is generating conflict throughout the region, notably between Iran and Sunni-ruled Arab states like Saudi Arabia. While the overthrow of Saddam in Iraq bolstered Shiites, the uprising against Iran’s Syrian ally President Bashar al-Assad could lead to power in Damascus shifting toward Syria’s Sunni majority.
“The rise of sectarianism is already there,” Allawi said. “We are witnessing the beginning of it and the influences of what is happening in the region is only adding fuel to the fire. My fear is that the Iraqi people will lose faith in the political process and sectarianism will prevail.
“Unless the international community and the region get involved and unless sense prevails, Iraq is heading towards a very big conflict.”
Krauthammer:
See author page
Obama is only following the timeline for withdrawal that your hero Bush had set, you retarded idiot. You’re blog sucks.
Jake
Every contract comes to an end. The contract the previous Admin had with Iraq left room to work out a longer stay.It was up to this president renew it.He failed .
the time lines were put in place because of lib-tard demands ,just like all the retarded” place nice” limitations & restrictions our troop are crippled with.
Look, we could garrison this sh**hole for a century and the (falsely redefined) “mission” would never be complete. This wasn’t supposed to be a “nation building” mission. W caved early and often to the leftists of the world and this is the inevitable result. Elections were held waaay too early to placate world opinion, no self government should have been allowed until the pro-Iranian militias and mullahs had all been killed to the last man. Now, we’re setting up the same result in Afghanistan with Joe the Brain Drain saying the Taliban isn’t “really our enemy”.
What we should have done was secure the oil production, enforce a 100 mile deep free fire zone along the Iranian border and leave the cities to kill each other, stepping in only to finish off the winners. What we did do is prove to an intractable enemy that we don’t have the stomach to do what needs to be done.
Both parties blew this one, big time.
As I recall the final decision to withdraw was made because the Iraqis wouldn’t budge on their demand to have US soldiers be subject to Iraqi laws and courts. Of course it’s likely we could have strong-armed them into accepting continued presence on our terms, but that would surely have had some fallout too – making the Iraqi government look like a puppet regime and so on. As for ‘will have died in vain’, we had other goals in Iraq which we accomplished. Saddam was removed, whatever threat of terrorism his regime posed was neutralized, and the Iraqis were given a solid chance at democracy. If they now can’t pull themselves together and make it work, maybe it’s because they aren’t ready – and that isn’t our fault, or Obama’s. We aren’t to blame for all the evils of the world.
Eleven years, 4,485 Americans dead, 150,000 Americans disabled, and over 800 billion dollars spent. Enough is enough. At some point the people of a nation have to take responsibility for their own destiny.
Well, since I played devil’s advocate on Vince’s post with the same bleak outlook, I’ll just repost some pertinent excerpts here as well.
All of Iraq’s increased security woes, bombings, etal… were promised by Zawahiri back in Jan/Feb 2008. I blogged on that interview, pulling out some excerpts in the afore link. The link in that post to Part One of that interview, translated by Laura Mansfield, is no longer available. Ms. Mansfield never publicly released her translation of the second part, and instead provided the translations in their entirety as part of her book, “His Own Words: A Translation of the Writings of Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri “. I still possess the part one 46 page translation in PDF form, archived in my computer files. It still remains very interesting, and prescient reading.
Zawahiri specifically noted they merely needed to wait for the US to withdraw from both Iraq and Afghanistan, and then he predicted the jihad movement would proceed to re’enter and spread their influence. Not surprising… and doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that they’d put forth the effort to capture the most fertile Caliphate land in the ME – possessing not only rich oil fields, but two fresh water rivers. Then, of course, there is it’s siting and proximity to the rest of the ME states.
Iraq is, without a doubt, a prize to the Islam jihad movement. And if they could again attempt to seize tiny Kuwait, they’d add substantial Persian Gulf shoreline to their holdings as well.
I doubt that the Iraqis, knowing full well the prize they hold, did not anticipate this violence from these elements increasing once the US exited. It was one of the reasons they signed the 2008 SOFA with Bush. For more time to prepare their own defense. But I think everyone knows, it’s not always easy to foresee the one-man suicide bomber coming.
Just as Ben Franklin said at our more fragile beginning, the Iraqis have an Arab democracy… if they can keep it. It is not the job of the US to do so for them. Even had we stayed another decade, this violence will occur the moment we leave. It is up to the Iraqis to decide how they will deal with this lifestyle, just as the Israelis have had to learn to do with their regular assaults from across the border.
Iraq has the basics to police and protect their new government, plus the option to request aid and assistance if they see fit. But you cannot force it upon them. This admin and their military leaders tried to get Iraq to agree to extended US troop presence and more troops than they wanted. They said no, and demanded unacceptable terms INRE immunity to top it off. I doubt even Allah himself could get the Iraqi Parliament to change their minds for continued US presence.
The Iraqis will have to contend with their predictable and unsurprising jihad influence, attempting to regain support. What sane person didn’t think as soon as the US forces left, they wouldn’t flood in? But I don’t see the nation willingly accepting a military or jihad coup. and taking a step backwards from what they have created over the past years, and the blood shed also by them to do so.
But they will have to fight for it. I guess I disagree with those who believe they won’t fight to keep what they have.
While everyone is quick to point out they are ill-equipped to do so, I say we don’t know yet. And you sure can’t use these bombings as evidence they aren’t. It was expected, and I’d be suspicious if the jihad elements weren’t in there, doing their nefarious deeds. But they sure won’t be winning any Iraqi hearts and minds by doing so.
Stratfor reported just a few days ago on the diplomatic/security role the US continues to play with their four Iraq embassies… including Baghdad’s 104 acre complex… the largest embassy in the world. Both the US and Iraq will have to step up their intel efforts to try and thwart the majority of the jihad attacks, as well as keep the Iranian influence at bay.
The rest is up to Iraq… as it should be. Their Arab democracy. Their religious fanatical elements trying to destroy it. Give them a chance to rise to the occasion. It’s only been a few days since the last troops have left the country. A bit early to be labeling it a failed state, don’t you think?
@Jake Havechek: A “timeline for withdrawal” takes into account the facts on the ground as it progresses, n’est-ce pas? By the way, it’s “Your”, not “You’re”, you retar– (oh, never mind)
You can write all the BS you want to about justifying leaving Iraq. If it falls, you can stick a fork in Obama. His GOP opponent will hang this around his neck. There is no justification for abandoning Iraq before the commanders on the ground say so. About the WMD that was never found in Iraq. Seems the Israelis found it in Syria. They bombed it. Syria did not get the capability to produce nukes from North Korea or Pakistan. They got it from the 100 trunks which left Iraq days before the invasion. North Korea does not have the industrial capablity to make the equipment necessary to produce nukes, they have to buy it. No shipments of such equipment went from N. Korea to Syria. Bush was justified.
@Jake Havechek: Bush’s timeline included a provision for staying in Iraq longer if conditions on the ground indicated that was a good idea. While you are correct when you insinuate that Obama can’t think for himself, your answer is incomplete. Back to remediation camp with you.
Iraq was not “abandoned”, Zelsdorf Ragshaft. That would imply that Iraq wanted us to stay with the amount of troops the US commanders, (and this POTUS) wanted, and we refused to do so.
They did not. They rejected all offers and terms presented to extend and or create a new SOFA agreement acceptable to both nations.
So in order to force what you think is the correct thing to do, we would genuinely have to occupy Iraq against their will.
This isn’t about ‘justification”. It’s a simple statement of fact. The SOFA agreement came to an end. What the US wanted, and what Iraq wanted was insurmountable, so we were, in essence, politely kicked out the door… except for our embassies.
That is not “abandonment”.
Of course conservatives will. If Obama wants to claim credit for a withdrawal schedule not of his making, he needs to assume the blame if the state fails as well. Might be politically convenient and expedient, but not necessarily true. The facts are, it is what it is. We were welcomed until this SOFA agreement ended. No new agreement for further troop presence could be negotiated satisfactorily, so we left. If they want to assume the responsibility for their future, who the heck are we to demand an unwelcomed occupation?
No disagreement about the WMD’s and Syria. Most of us here have been saying that for quite some time. And in case you don’t know, I was and am a supporter of OIF. But I am not a supporter of forcing our presence when not wanted.
Let the Iraqis show us their will, and their capabilities. All this doom and gloom, and predictions of failure, are far too premature.
Here is the link to the SOFA, Meremortal. Mind pointing out this one way agreement that the withdrawal date was flexible based on US military assessment, and not mutual approval?
I can save you some time…. simply leap to Article 30… The Period for Which the Agreement is Effective. This means the prior 29 Articles mean nothing once the agreement has formally ended, without mutual re negotiations, amendments or a new SOFA.
@MataHarley: MataHarley, you have a point when you write that disaster is not ensured by a spate of bombings at this time. The bad guys were obviously planning and waiting for this moment. What happens over the next few weeks is not as important as what happens over the next 6 months. Let’s see if the bad guys can keep their tempo up for a while before we judge what’s happening on the ground. You are also correct re the SOFA. A president with foreign policy chops would have been able to work around that and get a compromise, I believe. I wish the Iraqis luck. We will be much better off if the current govt can keep relative order.
@MataHarley: (Chuckles) I didn’t mean to answer you before you wrote your last, but I think my response will suffice. We are in general agreement, other than my supposition about a compromise/change of the SOFA, which is not supportable on my part, being simply an opinion.
Absolutely, Meremortal. Hey, we’ve been gone what… a few days? And as I pointed out, Zawahiri made it quite plain that the jihad forces would move in our wake when we exited.
Iraqis know this. It was one of the reasons that they extended the UN mandate with the Bush/Iraq SOFA… so that they could get their own defenses further along. Now, apparently they think they are ready to tackle what comes their way. But I suspect they will have to vastly improve their intel.
I just don’t think the Iraqis are going to be welcoming a jihad “arab spring” in their newly created nation. I think they have a tough road because the jihad movements will sure be doing everything they can. But it’s not unexpected, and I’d like to see what they can do. I suspect this is going to be their lifestyle for the rest of their existence anyway… just as it’s Israel’s.
Hi BBart:
Entirely agree.
– Larry W/HB
The first post says it all. Everything else is just BS.
Your less than astute, and quite empty, observation (your usual caliber) tops the list of BS, followed rapidly by comment #1.
By your account, the U.S. Civil War ended in the 1970s. Before that there were lynchings, bombings, burnings and segregation in the South. Even after that there is still some of that, but it wasn’t government sponsored like it was then.
Of course there is going to be some challenge to the government, but bombings are one sign the opposition is weak in manpower. They aren’t strong enough to take over a village let alone a town.
@Tim T.: Yeah Tim, I was wondering what the guy meant when he said, “You are blog sucks.”
LOL, those witty insults kinda lose their sting when elementary grammar rules aren’t followed. 😀 😆
@liberalchild: The ugly bomb thrower rears his head and graces us with his wit and wisdom. What amazes me is that there wasn’t even one fatherless child for liberalchild to insult, yet he still offered up his GIGO intellect.
GIGO = garbage in, garbage out (See? I did the heavy lifting for you and gave you the definition.)
Everything we set out to accomplish in Iraq has been accomplished. The war was won and the mission was righteous. Saddam is no longer a threat and there is an elected pro U.S. government in power. Hopefully it stays that way so we don’t have to go back in. Time will tell if it was wise not to try harder to maintain a presence there. As previously noted on this thread, it took this country years to come together as a nation and it’s still very divided almost to the point where another war amongst ourselves is a possibility. Iraq’s democracy is still in its infancy. As for the increase in violence, while it’s bad, look at what is going on south of our border. I don’t know what the death toll in Iraq has been lately, but Mexico’s is now over 45,000. That is a bigger threat to our country due to its proximity. No one seems to want to address that problem however.
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2011/12/21/in-focus-mexico-drug-war-five-years-later/5151/
Do any of the liberals remember that Bush had the COMPLETE support of the senate and the house? And that ALL the liberals supported the belief that Saddam had WMD’s (which by the way has been proven, do a Google check)!
And BTW, Bush at least sought the support of the other branches of government, unlike this POTUS does!
@Bruce: They either don’t remember or have resorted to revising history to support their opinions.
I disagree with you on this one, Curt. Obama is using the election as an excuse to pull out, not using the pullout as an excuse for the election. He has made enemies of our friends, and friends of our enemies. Any friend of the USA’s is an enemy of Obama. When the enemy takes back Iraq, Obama will make friendly with them.
SMORGASBORD
you come in with another angle here, Could it be that the ARABSPRING which OBAMA agreed on, will be duplicate in IRACK, for the opposition to oust the now leadership and with the backing of OBAMA again?
that would be nefarious
Jake Havecheck
it look like you are the idiot here, and you suck,
the time line was moveble, debateble, flexible,
are you stuck on the; It’s BUSH FAULT, IDIOT.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
@ilovebeeswarzone: #26
If I were a gambler, I’d bet that’s Obama’s Plan. He bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia. He wants us to have to bow to him.
I enjoyed your comment’s, Mata.
Glad you did, Ivan. Merry Christmas to you and family. And a day, or even a moment of peace, is always to be enjoyed.
God bless you and your family also, Mata.
MATA
I was thinking of perhaps, the last negotiations where not made as good as they should have been,
I remember reading that the MILITARY where saying being close to an understanding to have troops remain , and what happen as I remember reading, is that CLINTON TOOK OVER WITH SOME DIPLOMATS TO NEGOTIATE ON TOP OF THE EXISTING MILITARY NEGOTIATIONS IN PROGRESS,,
LETTING ME TO THINK THEY RUSH THE PROCESS, LIKE BEING PUSHY TO GET ANSWERS,
THEREFOR UNDERMINING THE DELICATE PROCESS and dropping the results, making the MILITARY ANGRY AS TO HAVE BEEN DOUBLE CROSS, BY HILLARY TAKING OVER PRESS BY OBAMA TO CUT AND LEAVE, which seems to have already be his decision no matter what before HILLARY moved in,
to end it, disregarding the MILITARY DIPLOMATIC TALKS
GOING ON SEEMINGLY POSITIVLY LEADING TO THEIR BOTH RESOLVED PROBLEMS as we where made aware of,
before HILLARY MOVED IN
Merry Christmas, Ms. Bees. Hard for me to even want to think “politics” today. At least one day off a year from it is always a treat.
But INRE negotiations about troops staying longer… I’ve said above that I don’t think even Allah himself could have gotten thru the Iraq Parliament for any type of agreement. I think any and every case of acquiescence from the US in order to leave troops there would be too much to accept. So I’m good to move on, and let them tackle their own nation’s security. I hope that, if they need help, they will call again on the US to hang on to their nation. But I don’t see any reason why an “arab spring” uprising, removing an elected government they, themselves, created, would be an improvement. That would be like the US allowing mob rule to throw out the US government, and replace it with a despot.
Who in their right minds would want that?
Iraq is not the same as Libya under Gaddafi, Egypt under Mubarak, or Syria, or Yemen. They have what every one, in theory, wants…. Now, can they keep it using their own resources? Jihad elements will be working over time to reverse what Iraq has gained.
MATA
yes, I understand your POINT, hopefully they will follow the precious advices which the MILITARY set for them,
remembering the price of blood have been spill to plant the seed of freedom, which they will have to maintain,
by also paying the heavy price or fall , allowing the mob rule to vainquish like the ARAB-SPRING which are not stopping their march to get all the COUNTRIES UNDER THEIR RULES,
but on the contrary, are energize by their victorys and the support they have outside their walls; like they said, they have time, we don’t
bye
Let em kill each other. It’s NOT our business anymore. They are downwind from Israel. It’s only a matter of time!
David Brickner
yes, their problem might be, there are too many who prefer DICTATOR RULES, THAN DEMOCRACY,
Those who prefer submission don’t know anything else exist,
bye