Posted on 09/11/2013 7:25:57 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A flurry of diplomatic activity has overtaken the Senate debate on the use of force by the United States against Syria as punishment for/deterrence against the use of chemical weapons. The world awaits the next meeting, the next announcement, the next slip-of-the-tongue, or the first bomb.
The interregnum is a good time to note that the president has been blaming the Iraq war for American reticence on war in Syria. "I'm not sure that we're ever going to get a majority of the American people -- after over a decade of war, after what happened in Iraq," he told PBS. What, exactly does the president think, "happened in Iraq" and why does he think the war was only "a decade" long?
The Iraq War began in 1990 with the invasion of Kuwait and as a direct outgrowth of the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, in which the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein.
President George H.W. Bush said of the occupation of Kuwait, "This aggression will not stand," and indeed it did not. But when Kuwait was liberated, the U.S.-led coalition made a decision not to invade Iraq and not to depose Saddam, but according to Gen. Colin Powell's memoirs, "our practical intention to leave Baghdad enough power to survive as a threat to an Iran that remained bitterly hostile toward the United States." A ceasefire, then, and political accommodation with a properly chastened Saddam.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Lessons to be learned from Iraq and Questions to be asked:
* Iraq should indeed be uppermost in the president’s mind — not as a metaphor for a failed attempt at “nation building,” but as the driver of questions about the failures of inspections, sanctions, and international control regimes.
* Do we know where the stockpiles are and how can we be sure they are where they were? Since we know Assad has hidden them, how will we know we’ve accounted for all of them?
* Will the chemical stockpiles will be centralized in one place and then destroyed? How, and most importantly, by whom?
* How will the consolidated areas be safeguarded and by whom?
* Will the Syrian government give a UN force “safe passage” to move assets out of the country? Will the rebels? Or will an international force be expected to guard Syrian assets in place — making them sitting ducks in the civil war?
* Who can we trust to CERTIFY that all WMD’s have been declared?
This is like Saddam’s Iraq all over again...
How soon the vast majority forgets. They forgot 6 months after some of the stockpiles were uncovered in the desert.
Tough questions. Nobody really expects Obama to do anything, do they?
“How soon the vast majority forgets. They forgot 6 months after some of the stockpiles were uncovered in the desert.”
No no no... Those were the wrong stockpiles. /sarc
“How soon the vast majority forgets. They forgot 6 months after some of the stockpiles were uncovered in the desert.”
No no no... Those were the wrong stockpiles. /sarc
“I’m not sure that we’re ever going to get a majority of the American people — after over a decade of war, after what happened in Iraq,” he told PBS.
This man can find a way to blame someone else or something else no matter what. He will never except responsibility for his own failures.
One of the intended strategic consequences of Irag campaign was the creation of a Democratic State and it’s effect on the region. Iraq would be a pillar of light of freedom that would inspire change. That change did indeed occur.
If obama had maintained a military presence in Iraq we would have had the option secure the chemical weapons in Syria. We could have supported the rebel factions while suppressing Al-queda. It is incompetent (of obama) to pursue military action without an army.
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