Why Republicans can't blame Obama for Iraq or ISIS

[kentuck]

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/defense/243281-why-republicans-cant-blame-obama-for-iraq-or-isis

<snip>

The National Review claims that President Obama is to blame for Iraq's demise and states: "What had been won on the ground could be just as easily lost if the U.S. did not leave behind peacekeepers in the manner that it had in all its past successful interventions: the Balkans, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea." However, American soldiers in postwar German, Japan, the Philippines and other regions never had to contend with anything similar to Iraq's counterinsurgency conflict: ambushes, improvised explosive devices and insurgents destroying rival holy sites. Aside from the fact that countries like post-World War II Germany and post-invasion Iraq are polar opposite scenarios (West Germany had a government longing for American forces, while Iraq has been a deadly sectarian quagmire since 2003), this viewpoint also ignores the fact that Iraqi leaders had their own objectives, and these goals ran contrary to U.S. national security.

First, it was President George W. Bush, not Obama, who negotiated the Status of Forces Agreement that set the timetable for a 2011 withdrawal of U.S. soldiers. As for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's (R) belief that Obama "refused" a plan to leave 10,000 Americans in Iraq, that is rated "mostly false" according to Politifact.com. While Obama has been accused of not taking negotiations for a new agreement seriously, the leader of Nouri al-Maliki's bloc in the Iraqi parliament believed that American demands were "a nonstarter for most of the parties and MPs [members of parliament]" and that a new status of forces agreement would be "very difficult, if not impossible," as quoted in The Atlantic. Echoing this viewpoint, a TIME magazine article headlined "Iraq's Government, Not Obama, Called Time on the U.S. Troop Presence" notes that "ending the U.S. troop presence in Iraq was an overwhelmingly popular demand among Iraqis" and that "it was Iraqi democracy that put the kibosh on that goal."

<snip>
Finally, there was never a time, from 2003 until the present day, where Iraq was "won," and there has never been a year in Iraq since 2003 where the words "Mission Accomplished" could be uttered without hearing the sounds of suicide bombs or ambulance sirens. A recent study estimates that nearly 500,000 Iraqis have died during the war, while M.I.T. states that around 3.5 to 5 million have been displaced because of the conflict. Iraq Body Count estimates a total of 1,003 suicide bombings in Iraq from 2003 to 2010. The U.S. military can't stop people from deciding to blow themselves up, regardless of what is said by Republicans who blame Obama for Iraq's demise.

Even with 10,000 American soldiers, which the Iraqis refused to allow in 2011, there would still have been rampant political corruption, suicide bombings, Iranian backed-Shiite militias and Saudi-backed Sunni tribes, and also the emergence of ISIS (a rebranding of al Qaeda, since ISIS used to be al Qaeda in Iraq) in Syria. Obama isn't perfect, but the demise of Iraq began the moment Bush decided upon regime change, not in 2011 with Obama's decision to bring our soldiers home. The fact that Iraq's Shiite-dominated security forces showed "no will to fight" — in the words of Secretary Ash Carter — a Sunni terror group named ISIS in Ramadi highlights the reality that Iraq's ethnic divisions always doomed a functioning state.

....more at link

[calimary]

1. Wish I could recommend this 1,000,000 times!!!

Lots of good talking points to beat back any yammering your weird Uncle Harry who watches nothing but Pox Noise would have you believe.

[DeeDeeNY]

2. Here's the problem:

Republicans are not interested in facts.

[Thinkingabout]

3. Feel sure the GOP was very happy with Paul this week, sometimes it would be best I the GOP shut

Down the blame the Democrats for the Iraq invasion. It would soon die and the Democrats and the Democrats have indicated they want to get onto the business of governoring and not waste time rehashing a very dumb move to invade Iraq.

[JHB]

4. Oh, that hasn't stopped them...

it's not as if National Review ever does an internal review of its writers for perceptiveness and foresight.

If they did, reading the same writers' archive from 2002-2003 on their sight would empty out their entire stable.

[napkinz]

5. George W. Bush, The Father Of Isis