Obama warns of U.S. action as jihadists push on Baghdad

President Barack Obama on Thursday threatened U.S. military strikes in Iraq against Sunni Islamist militants who have surged out of the north to menace Baghdad and want to establish their own state in Iraq and Syria.

Iraqi Kurdish forces took advantage of the chaos to take control of the oil hub of Kirkuk as the troops of the Shi'ite-led government abandoned posts, alarming Baghdad's allies both in the West and in neighboring Shi'ite regional power Iran.

"I don’t rule out anything because we do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria," Obama said at the White House when asked whether he was contemplating air strikes. Officials later stressed that ground troops would not be sent in.

Obama was looking at "all options" to help Iraq's leaders, who took full control when the U.S. occupation ended in 2011. "In our consultations with the Iraqis, there will be some short-term immediate things that need to be done militarily," he said.

But he also referred to long-standing U.S. complaints that Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had failed to do enough to heal a sectarian rift that has left many in the big Sunni minority, shut out of power when U.S. troops overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003, nursing grievances and keen for revenge.

"This should be also a wakeup call for the Iraqi government. There has to be a political component to this," Obama said.

In a related article, Obama already publicly declares that there will be no use of ground troops: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/12/us-iraq-security-obama-military-idUSKBN0EN21220140612

Good post. Interesting to hear that from you. I can remember to see a discussion between you and Atlantic Bridge where you came to a complete different conclusion.

You said that German doubts concerning the US-role in Iraq war were unjustified. Atlantic Bridge argued that it is impossible for a democratic nation like the US to endure the losses to win a preemptive strike. This is exactly what has happend. Obama was elected because of Americans who were fed up with seeing their sons dying in a lonely desert and Iraqis who where not interested in western democracy or judeo-christian values. All they want to have in Bagdad was and is islam.

Now America has wasted 5000 American lives and -much worse- has killed probably a few hundred thousand Iraqis.

http://derstandard.at/1381368712588/Durch-den-Irak-Krieg-starb-eine-halbe-Million-Menschen

(Sorry in German, but I know that you can read it)

and produced thousands of new terrorists. You are now in something that I call “Himmlers dilemma”. Himmler (the biggest German disgrace) once said, that he can not limit the holocaust on adult males since the jewish wifes and kids would hate Germany and Germans that much that they will continue their fight even harder. Therefore he wiped out all of them.

Of course America is not Himmler, but the problem is simply the same. The Iraqi people never were on the side of the US and all kids who lost their family in some collateral damage are gung ho to kill as much Americans (or Christians) as possible. Thank you G.W.Bush, thank you Donald Rumsfeld, thank you Obama!

Atlantic Bridge was wrong in his forecast. He said that the Iranians will take over. It is an irony. Now we have to pray that they will take over since this would be a much better solution than the apparent ISIS-khalifate.

Love it or hate it: Saddam Hussein and Assad were far better alternatives than those islamic idiots. Without American participation in the ME the world would be much better off than it is today. We Europeans know very well, that America practically lost all its major wars since 1945. Therefore Gerhard Schroeder and Jaques Chirac were right to stand aside instead of taking part in this idiotic action.

I do not want to offend anybody here, but from a European view you guys had the right intention (bringing democracy to other countries, build new nations etc.) but made crazy faults. Of course Obamas pull-out was imbecile but the basic mistake was already made in the beginning.

Regards from Europe!

Andreas

You’re reading what you want to hear into what I wrote.

There was/is no inevitable defeat, just like there was no inevitable defeat in Vietnam. Failure, if it happens, is a self fulfilling prophesy in this case.

Iraq has many people that not only fought on our side but continued to fight for Iraq after we left. Iraq is a less tribal, more secular and world open society that had a pre-existing government bureaucracy which could run a country, fairly high literacy rate (60%) for a Middle Eastern nation, pre-existing infrastructure, some national identity, there was limited support for the Ba’athists, and something that can support an economy (oil).

Failure wasn’t/isn’t predestined. It took Germany 10 years to have a Bundeswehr, longer to have its own currency, operational courts... Iraq, if it fails, is because the US pulled the plug on their respirator before they could breath on their own. Heck, there are still German, US and other forces in the Balkans, how long has that been? But wait, that was a war Germany instigated/championed, so that’s all different in your mind. You’re justifying your position of inaction, when my argument is that we will now possibly lose all our gains because we didn’t commit long enough.

These wars are a lot like treating cancer. If you quit the chemo and radiation therapy after 50%-75% of the treatments, the probability of a re-occurrence is high, and when the cancer comes back, it does so with a vengeance.

US withdraw from Iraq was driven by the US political process, i.e. the 2012 elections. This date made political sense for Obama, but it was not tied into any of the realities on the ground in Iraq. It was a tight deadline that caused a race to the finish line. Imagine had all US forces left W. Germany in 1953 with the Soviets and the DDR on the other side of them. Imagine had the US President gone on TV and said, “this is a German problem now and we’ll not commit any ground forces to help them.” What signal would that have sent to the bad guys? What would that have done to the morale of the good guys? How do you really think that would have ended for you? And had the Soviets come in, as they did elsewhere (1968 invasion of Czech...etc), do you really think the Germans would have ferociously fought back? LOL

The real reason for this implosion is because of two Iraqi Arab generals that abandoned their post and basically handed two cities over to these terrorists. Iraq is trying to recover from this disaster, and you are seeing old adversaries in the Iraqi government come together to deal with this problem. Sistani who was quiet for a long time has come out and rallied support for Iraq in the fight against this group. All is not lost yet, but Obama just talking and giving bullshit speeches about how this is an Iraqi issue is definitely not going to help. All the rhetoric is essentially disengagement talk, which if you want Iraq to succeed is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen. Even if we intervene from the air, it will likely be to little, and too late, some small involvement after team Obama does all the political calculus to figure out what they can do without damaging themselves.

I’m glad to hear we still have some German speaking allies that are rationalizing their in-actions everywhere through Schadenfreude. You know buddy, someday when the alligator has eaten everyone else and you think your smart because you didn’t join the fight against him earlier, he’ll come for you.

Many mistakes were made.

Disbanding the Iraqi Army was a HUGE mistake. It caused for the break down in security and actually fed the insurgency and regime loyal fighters against us. The Iraqi intelligence service as well as the military actually knew the threat very well and would have proved invaluable if getting many of these bad guys since they knew the neighborhoods, many of the actors, etc.

That was likely one of the biggest mistakes that also led to us being “required” to stay there for a long time, thrusting us into roles that exposed troops, i.e. playing police, traffic control points, etc.

“All they want to have in Baghdad was and is Islam”- No. Iraq is more secular of the Islamic nations. Think more like Turkey.

The article is full of shit. Casualties for the Iraqi's were likely less than 1/3 (~130,000) of what they list in this article. US casualties (which include those that died from accidents, which is about 1/3) was 4,486. These articles can't pump up the numbers of US casualties too much (accurate data that can be backed up), but on the civilian side they can start playing their guessing games and generate huge numbers through extrapolation and modeling etc., but they are bullshit.

First I have to say that I am personally well aware about the alligator. Germany makes fundamental faults in the moment. Because of social waste and traitorous politicians our (German) millitary was reduced into a ridicolus troop of clowns with a day-care-center that could be rounded up by the New York Police Department.

In fact Germany is still occupied by the US. The “democracy” you have in Germany is a second class system that holds the people away from power. Decisive is the chancellor and its party. The so called “Grundgesetz”, a constitution that we gave ourselves under the mercy of the US and UK, gives only the possibilty to accept pre-set politicians of parties. The will of the German people is not represented. In fact it is a system very close to the “guided democracy” of Russia. If we would have a first class democracy (something the US does not have either) like in Denmark or Switzerland, where the people of a country decide things between our countries would be slightly different. Your NSA could not move inside our country anymore i.e.. But we Germans are not free, and your string puppets like Merkel and von der Leyen lead our country further into decadence.

Nevertheless I am thankful to the US. You are right. Without your help I would have grown up under communist reign. There are good moments in history that are not forgotten and that we owe America: NATO’s double track decision, Ronald Reagan requesting Gorbachew to open the wall, the Berlin Air-bridge and long-time support of a nation that lost its ethical basement during the Nazi-time. Anyway you can not compare the situation of Germany in 1947 with the situation in Iraq today. We Germans were thankful at that time and were greedy for forgiveness and we did not kill Americans anymore. Things in Iraq were and are slightly different.

But - to our problem: You lost all your mayor wars since 1945 because America does not win the hearts of the people anymore. The problems in Iraq are the religious differences combined with a fundamental dishonesty of your purposes. Islam does not know “democracy”. Period. Everybody knows that. Since the US did not extort a secular constitution, you should have known that the best form of “democracy” is something like in Iran. Therefore the only reason to go there was a mixed demand of political and economic influence. As we all know Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Iraq was a simple war of conquest. Nothing more and nothing less.

Maybe those two Iraqi Arab generals that abandoned their post and basically handed two cities over to these terrorists had reason to do so. Maybe they were fed up with this US string puppie (Maliki) in Bagdad. The soldiers apparently also had no reason to fight for democracy, Maliki or the West. The West (my taxes are used in Afghanistan for the same thing) has spent bazillions to finance arab troops that will disintegrate in the moment we leave.

The whole thing was a fault.

We - the west - have to invent ourselves new. Countries like Germany and France have to take their share in security instead of mooching around. That means to help and to strike if it is nessecary but the intention should be staying on the own territory. The US have to rethink their strategy. Maybe it is better to be feared (through hard strikes against terrorists or ill-natured people) but only export your ideas and ideals to other countries if they are wanted. Besides it would be helpful if you guys could act like friends instead of misusing our trust in you.

Furthermore we all have to stay together. Japan, Taiwan and South Korea will come into massive troble in the next decade. They will need the help of all “free” countries if they want to survive the Chinese hunger for power. The US alone are not strong enough.

And -last but not least- we have to win the hearts of all the people with our ideals and ideas again. The best thing to do is to develop ourselves and not to end up in socialist decadence.

The problem is that no one really wants this “change” when it comes to reforming NATO or anything else for that matter. Georgia, Iraq, Ukraine... all examples. What did “Uneingeschraenkte Solidaritaet” really mean after 9-11? Pretty words that sounded good and are beneficial politically the moment after 9-11, but when it came time to pay, the tone changed.

What you really have is a loose alliance with voluntary contributions regards the “real” threats we collectively face. The Cold War is over, but the security apparatus we have, in it’s structure and requirements is all still based around a Euro centric defense by some invading force, when in reality the threats are pirates off the coast of Somalia, some diaper head in Afghanistan, Iran’s ambitions for a nuke and long range missiles, more diaper heads in Libya, Syria, etc... Everyone wants to reap the benefits, no one wants to pay. That’s not picking on the Germans, because that’s virtually everyone: Austria, France, Spain, Greece, Turkey... They will ALL ring the alarm bell and demand help when it is in their interests, i.e. Balkans, but few want to get involved especially if it could get messy, most are under funding and under-staffing their armed forces. Many are not meeting their NATO agreements, flat out.

Nations like the US are not somehow intellectually or morally superior, but they are thrust into a position where they cannot shrink from their obligations or responsibilities, as even today Obama is figuring out. Germany can pretend as if a Korean war isn’t their problem, but the US can’t pretend this away.

The US is through her post WWII position, contractual agreements with both NATO and ANZUS (Pacific) where she is in a leadership role, her enormous size economically, in population, technology and resources, and her ability to work across most allies (some don’t work together: i.e. France/Germany in the past, Greece/Turkey, Japan/S. Korea), in a position where she cannot hide or step back and let others simply fix the problems out there, because they can’t. Had The US not stepped in, the Euro’s despite all their Euro-Corps, Euro this and that... would not have come to the conclusion as quickly, with as few casualties, and with minimal escalation as was the case. The US is in a leadership role by default, not because she forces this upon others. However, the status-qua, where she pays disproportionately politically, economically, and in security while others enjoy all the benefits of this “world order” they like to bad mouth, is unacceptable.

As to your points.

The US and Germany are republics, not democracies. That is a common misnomer.

The constabulary ended in 1952 and by the early-mid 70s Germany regained full sovereignty. This was a common leftist argument in the past.

Longer casualty producing and costly conflicts are the problem. Opposition politics, an American society that wants instant answers and to feel good about themselves are the issue. A media that lives on a fast pace of trash news that has to be conflicted and controversial adds to this. A high turn over rate even in America’s bureaucracies and an election every few years causes the US to have only a near term vision. The US actually is very shallow and near sighted in her thinking, with 3 years being the maximum time horizon she works under.

The West et al. is in a cultural decline. The rise of Asian economic powers, the wealth transfer to the Middle East, the increase in influence of Islamic culture in Western nations, declining populations were it not for vast immigration, the loss of holdings or possessions (for the US the Philippines, Panama Canal, etc), the decline in significant technical patents or even the numbers of engineers and scientists we are producing, our relative flat GDP and low growth in productivity rates... The children growing up today will likely have a “lower” standard of living than their parents, that is true in Germany as it is in the US. While all point the finger at each other in blame, all are in the same boat declining, some faster, some slower, but all are in this boat. The West (to include Japan, Australia, S. Korea), has adopted cultural traits that are self destructive. Putting ones hopes in the huge supra national institutions like the UN, EU or NATO is a joke. Ever bigger weakness and decline, is still weakness and decline which ends up with nothing. Real strength comes from a culture and foundation that goes bottom up. A nation like Germany was able to fight off the world for 6 years and with 78 million people. Today, a combined Europe with more than 300 million wouldn’t be able to deal with a major problem in the Balkans, if that were to flare up again. The solution is a growth oriented posture regards the economy, ones society, etc. We have lost the basic tenets that make a society great/successful:

-Homogenous with a common culture and identity
-Personal culpability
-Value of children and marriage
-Embracing of technology
-Willingness to use force to protect oneself and property
-Time sensitivity
-Aversion to corruption

Successful civilizations share certain traits. We (The West) are losing these.

Germany post WWII or even Japan are very much so comparable to Iraq. The difference back then is that we did it smarter and had the long term resolve to see it through to the end. Iraq isn’t like Afghanistan, in which case any nation building effort is a waste of time, money and lives. Bremmer screwed up by disbanding the Iraqi forces, the US Army screwed up by not really having an adequately resourced plan on how to deal with a post Saddam Iraq and reconstruction. The ruling powers in Washington screwed up by trying to condense the reconstruction into an unfeasible timeline that served them politically. Afghanistan will fail because of the Afghans who still live in the stone age. Iraq’s failure will rest square on the shoulders of the US which will push the blame on Iraq with rhetorical nonsense arguments. Leaving the way we did, made this into a coin toss (50-50).

The irony is, that the moochers are the ones that stand the most to gain or lose.

Think about it, who is more dependent on oil from the Middle East and North Africa? Who is in closest geographical proximity? Who has the greatest Muslim populations within her borders? Who has the “history” with this part of the world? What is happening in Turkey today (drifting towards more fundamentalist Islam)? What are the fastest growing demographic population groups in several Euro nations? Even the war in the Balkans, who were the Bosnian Muslims, where did they originally come from and whose land are they on?

You’re seeing the world today, but over time, and it is only a matter of time, the Muslim problem (which we don’t want to define it as) will be in Europe’s face. In the meantime, what is a nation like Austria or Denmark doing?

Everyone in reality knows the threat, even though they all refuse to clearly define it publicly because just like Merkel declaring the multicultural society dead, this is politically untenable at the time. Why do you think Germany began a vast surveillance program monitoring mosques, or changed her Abscheiberecht (deportation laws) while the leftists Greens and SPD were in power, all at the same time they were claiming that this threat Bush was talking about was just a figment of his imagination?

As the US pulls back, and many in Europe will cheer this on, it is they who will eventually inherit the trouble. But for the time being, it is do as little as possible and pretend there is no problem for most Euro nations, or even in the US, where we are now taking the same narrative as Europe. Since 9-11 there have been 34 Islamic based terrorist attacks in the US alone. Do you see this advertised or talked about? I suppose things are not bad enough yet for the masses to see things the way they are. The average Joe or Schmidt has been directly and personally affected yet. Sure, they hear about these things happening, but it’s not personal yet for 98% of the population and all our governmental efforts to prevent/deter attacks, to smooth things over and downplay, to create empathy for these people, only helps create this illusion that all is fine somehow.

The irony is, that the moochers are the ones that stand the most to gain or lose.

As the US pulls back, and many in Europe will cheer this on, it is they who will eventually inherit the trouble. But for the time being, it is do as little as possible and pretend there is no problem for most Euro nations, or even in the US, where we are now taking the same narrative as Europe. Since 9-11 there have been 34 Islamic based terrorist attacks in the US alone. Do you see this advertised or talked about? I suppose things are not bad enough yet for the masses to see things the way they are. The average Joe or Schmidt has not been directly and personally affected yet. Sure, they hear about these things happening, but it’s not personal yet for 98% of the population and all our governmental efforts to prevent/deter attacks, to smooth things over and downplay, to create empathy for these people, only helps create this illusion that all is fine somehow.

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