"I served in Viet Nam."
Posted on 06/25/2014 5:58:47 PM PDT by xzins
Three things have happened in the past weeks that are making it obvious that the nation that has been Iraq since 1919 will soon cease to exist. First, the Turks have spoken in an approving way of the idea of an independent Kurdistan inside of what is now Iraq and has moved to address the issues that have fueled a long running Kurdish insurgency in Turkey. Second, Iraqi Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki has cast his lot firmly and unambiguously with Iran.
In his weekly televised address, Mr Maliki called on “all political forces to reconcile” in the face of a “fierce terrorist onslaught”.
But the Shia prime minister gave no promise of greater representation in government for the minority Sunni Arab community, whose anger at what they say are his sectarian and authoritarian policies has been exploited by jihadist militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis).
Mr Maliki said forming an emergency administration that included all religious and ethnic groups would go against the results of April’s parliamentary elections, which were won by his State of Law alliance.
“The dangerous goals of forming a national salvation government are not hidden,” he said. “It is an attempt by those who are against the constitution to eliminate the young democratic process and steal the votes of the voters.”
What makes Maliki’s statement important is that it was made in direct response to entreaties made by our own Forrest Gump of diplomacy, Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit to Iraq.
His pleas was also ignored by Masoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq.
Secretary of State John Kerry urged the president of Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region on Tuesday not to seek his own state and instead help form a government in Baghdad.
“I am going to bring up the elephant in the room,” Mr. Kerry told the president, Masoud Barzani, who serves as the leader of the Iraqi Kurds, a minority who have long sought independence. “This moment requires statesmanship.”
Mr. Kerry’s statements, shared by a senior State Department official who attended the meeting, were prompted by recent comments by Mr. Barzani in an interview with CNN about what he called the need for Kurdish self-determination.
Mr. Barzani neither withdrew those comments nor said that he would take concrete steps to pursue self-determination during his meeting with Mr. Kerry, who traveled to Iraq on Monday as part of an emergency effort to help deal with a growing Sunni insurgency threatening to partition the country.
The third item is that Prime Minister Maliki seems content to concede western Iraq to ISIS with the exception of Baghdad.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is ready to concede, at least temporarily, the loss of much of Iraq to Sunni insurgents and is instead deploying his best troops to defend Baghdad, Iraqi officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The number of troops normally deployed in Baghdad has doubled, the officials said. Significant numbers are defending the Green Zone, the sprawling area on the west bank of the Tigris River that is home to Maliki’s office, as well as the U.S. Embassy.
Once conceded, there is little to know chance that the Iraqi army or the immensely incompetent Iranian army will be able to dislodge ISIS from that territory.
It is amazing how little influence you have when you have neither carrots nor sticks to offer. And Mr. Maliki’s response is hardly surprising when “national unity government” has become administration code for “get rid of Maliki.”
Regardless of how we got into Iraq, and I still believe our invasion in 2003 was the proper thing to do and offer no apologies for my support of that war, the fact remains that this mess is completely the making of Barack Obama’s conscious policy of reducing American influence throughout the world.
When Obama became president he inherited an Iraq that was essentially stable. Al Qaeda had been largely suppressed. The Shia militias had been cowed into submission. Iran was experiencing a low level insurgency in its Arab speaking western provinces of undetermined origins… hmmm. In 2010, Obama and Hillary Clinton used what influence they had to ensure Nour al Maliki was given the chance to form a government even though his party had been badly beaten in parliamentary elections.
His contrived reappointment, coupled with a half-hearted attempt to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement that resulted in a precipitous US withdrawal from Iraq, led to the resurgence of a Sunni-Shia conflict that had been largely mediated by US forces. Maliki, himself, was at the center of the effort to stoke the conflict as a way of improving his own political chances. The US adventures in Libya and Syria have not only armed al Qaeda and thereby ISIS, those two conflicts have provided a rallying point and training ground for them. This is not even the “flypaper” strategy that Bush was criticized for, this is a “spoiled food in your living room” strategy.
Now that two-thirds of Iraq seem poised to go their own way, the only question left is how Obama will deal with an al Qaeda state located on top of Iraqi oil fields.
If this Sunni-Shia conflict was truly being "mediated" by U.S. forces, then the U.S. had no business ever being there in the first place. This would be like a Spanish military force showing up in New York and Montreal in 1755 to mediate a dispute between England and France over control of northeastern North America.
"I served in Viet Nam."
Jon Kery b stuk inn Irak.
If Turkey doesn’t go wobbly on us, a Kurdish alignment with Turkey would stabilize that northern part of Iraq. It would probably scare Iran. Turkey, if it is smart, should absolutely forbid Iran to acquire nuclear capacity. Turkey has access through NATO, and they should remain the only power up there with that access.
No, he recommended himself for a purple heart for the severe pain he was forced to endure due to a tragic handnail on his little finger he uses to pick his nose.
John Kerry is the new Jay Carney at the office.
Kerry still the idiot.
That is probably the dumbest picture ever in the entire world history of politics.
Yep. It got Dukakis off the hook.
Tank, helmet.
Who could forget?
LOL!
But the Kerry Bunny Slippers shot is for the ages.
Agree.
It is more than the partition of Iraq; it is the reversion of all of the artificial boundaries created by Sykes-Picot This will affect Iran, Syria Lebanon and possibly Jordan Let it happen say I
We no longer have any decent influence in Iraq and all of Kerry's "solutions" are not attainable goals but 60s Liberal nostrums which fly in the face of the reality which exists on the ground in Iraq.
1. The Kurds want their own country and now is their chance.
2. The Shiites have failed miserably and will be lucky if they can hold on to what they have left. They are not about to negotiate a deal with their enemies, the Sunnis. They are more likely to enter a deal with their Shiite neighbors in Iran, who already have huge political influence as well as military forces in the country.
3. Why should the Sunnis negotiate? They are winning and thumping their old enemies, the Shiites. Now is the chance to break away from them and the old colonial boundaries.
4. Why should ISIS compromise? They are forming their own Caliphate to attack Israel and the USA, and establish Islam worldwide.
5. The Russians are in the ascendency in the region and are more than willing to help their new friends in the region - Iran and the Iraqi Shiite government. Why do they need us?
We are crazy if we think we can enter this new world with nothing but hollow words and money and get anything we want. We have been shown to be the impotent infidel worthy of nothing but scorn.
Whatever influence we had to advance our own interests left when we withdrew our troops from the ground and gave up the field. Unless we are willing to insert ourselves militarily in a big way again we will be ignored.
Three hundred "advisors" put in there are nothing but beheading video bait. It is just another chance to humiliate the infidels and it will be done and they know we aren't going to do a thing about it except send in John Kerry and our effete State Department to complain, wax windy, and do nothing about it.
Besides, if we refuse to even defend our own borders, why should anybody think we will defend theirs? Why should they even care what we think?
“Was that Obama’s end game?”
A world-wide Caliphate. I believe THAT is Obama’s end-game.
And I further suspect that he thinks he’ll be appointed Caliph.
Zacktly. baraq thinks he will be rewarded, but he is a fool. The radical muslims are using baraq as a useful idiot.
Events will not play out as he thinks they will.
He made a deal with the devil and the devil will get his due.
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