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Why we stuck with Maliki — and lost Iraq
The Washington Post ^ | 7/3/2014 | ALI KHEDERY

Posted on 07/03/2014 8:34:30 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican

To understand why Iraq is imploding, you must understand Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — and why the United States has supported him since 2006.

I have known Maliki, or Abu Isra, as he is known to people close to him, for more than a decade. I have traveled across three continents with him. I know his family and his inner circle. When Maliki was an obscure member of parliament, I was among the very few Americans in Baghdad who took his phone calls. In 2006, I helped introduce him to the U.S. ambassador, recommending him as a promising option for prime minister. In 2008, I organized his medevac when he fell ill, and I accompanied him for treatment in London, spending 18 hours a day with him at Wellington Hospital. In 2009, I lobbied skeptical regional royals to support Maliki’s government.

By 2010, however, I was urging the vice president of the United States and the White House senior staff to withdraw their support for Maliki. I had come to realize that if he remained in office, he would create a divisive, despotic and sectarian government that would rip the country apart and devastate American interests.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: gwbush; iraq; iraqipm; maliki; obama
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1 posted on 07/03/2014 8:34:30 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican
if he remained in office, he would create a divisive, despotic and sectarian government that would rip the country apart and devastate American interests.

Obama?

2 posted on 07/03/2014 8:37:40 PM PDT by MUDDOG
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To: MinorityRepublican

We didn’t stick with Maliki. We abanadoned Maliki which is why he took matters into his own hands.


3 posted on 07/03/2014 8:41:20 PM PDT by Hoodat (Proverbs 29:2)
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To: MinorityRepublican; Gilbo_3; Impy; NFHale; GOPsterinMA; BillyBoy; fieldmarshaldj; Liz

Interesting read but this just proves that no matter how much $$$ and American lives we pour into these poor Islamic crap-holes we still cant control them.

Now in comparison China looks at the bottom $$$ line before moving in to other countries.

They are what libs wrongly called Republicans over the middle East, Business-men.


4 posted on 07/03/2014 8:42:10 PM PDT by sickoflibs (King Obama : 'The debate is over. The time for talk is over. Just follow my commands you serfs""')
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To: MinorityRepublican

Washington Compost runs defense for Obama


5 posted on 07/03/2014 8:49:31 PM PDT by Viennacon (Rebuke the Repuke!)
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To: MinorityRepublican

How about training and arming the rebels in Syria? They foung out it was easier to invade Northern Iraq. You can add McCain to the idiot list.


6 posted on 07/03/2014 8:51:59 PM PDT by Parley Baer
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To: MinorityRepublican

We lost Iraq and Afghanistan because.........

WE ALLOWED THEMTO FORM NEW CONSTITUTIONS BASED ON ISLAM INSTEAD OF FREEDOM OF RELIGION/CONSCIENCE!

Nobody wants to talk about this FACT.

Of course we couldn’t do that, because it would have enraged the locals....WHO ARE THE ENEMIES OF FREEDOM....

The difference between a moderate Muslim and a radical Muslim is the radical wants to kill people who aren’t Muslim, and the moderate wants the radical to kill them too. This would blow the neocon belief that Islam is peace, and Ward Cleaver is living just beneath the grimy pajamas of your average inbred, pajama wearing goat raper.

Cultures are not equivalent and genetics play a big role in societal behavior.

Nobody wants to talk about this. Humans are animals. Take an untrained Labrador Retriever and an untrained Rhodesian Ridgeback on your next wild hog hunt should you have doubts. You’ll have a crappy hunt, but a few hours in, you’ll see.

I may be a racist, culturist, misogynistic, homonausiac but as sure as God has teeth I’m right!


7 posted on 07/03/2014 9:10:34 PM PDT by noprogs (Tired of believing wisdom can come from the collective, willful ignorance of American voters)
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To: MinorityRepublican

This writer guy Ali Khedturd is like “I knew, I traveled, I know, I was, I helped, I organized, I accompanied, I lobbied....”

And then in 2010 “I urged” to Vice Chief Tard Biden that Maliki was all Bush’s fault and “I realized” all the blah blah frickin blah that Maliki was bad news blah.

Sooooo, in order to stay in good graces of the powers that be in DC, he decided to say all the right things along the meme of “Bush bad, Maliki crap, etc.” and presto voila, he keeps his job. And he gets to hob knob with the WAPO tards. Sweet!

Yep, got it.


8 posted on 07/03/2014 9:14:09 PM PDT by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: noprogs
WE ALLOWED THEMTO FORM NEW CONSTITUTIONS BASED ON ISLAM INSTEAD OF FREEDOM OF RELIGION/CONSCIENCE!

I doubt it. They could have had our Constituition line by line and it wouldn't have mattered. Heck dems don't follow the Constitution in this country. Just having the piece of paper isn't enough if no one follows it.

It fell apart because Maliki couldn't lead a bunch of factions and bring them together. Maybe no one could have done it. But certainly the US pulling out left a vacuum and ISIS filled it. In that part of the world you need brutal dictators. Should have left Hussein in power - in hindsight.

9 posted on 07/03/2014 9:45:16 PM PDT by plain talk
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To: MinorityRepublican
The Iraqi people made their choice thru elections that were infinitely better than any other elections held in the Middle East, with the exception of Israel. It is not our call to now try and override the voting decisions of the Iraqi people.

This is like a bad dream. This type of thinking that we can muscle in on an ally and call the shots on who the ally's legal representative should be has occurred before. We did it in Vietnam when JFK signed off on the assassination of South Vietnam's leader, Ngo Dinh Diem, by General Duong Van "Big" Minh. The net effect of that decision was to signal to other leaders in Southeast Asia that we were not dangerous allies to have around.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who was the leader of Cambodia at the time, took the logical next step and kicked all American advisors out of Cambodia. He then declared Cambodia to be a neutral party in the Vietnam War.

This was the key factor in turning the Vietnam War into the drawn out affair it become. Before Cambodia became neutral, the Ho Chi Minh trail didn't exist. After Cambodia became neutral, the front upon which the war was fought expanded by several orders of magnitude down the length of the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.

Put simply, without the Ho Chi Minh trail, North Vietnam would have had to fight a conventional war on a static East-West front with American air power being decisive due to a much reduced triple canopy cover that otherwise protected the Viet Cong's supply lines in Cambodia. As such, the front upon which the war was fought would have stablized in the early years of the war instead of in 1973 after Operation Linebacker and Operation Linebacker II had occurred.

The upshot of all this is that we should be very careful in interfering in the internal politics of allies who are at war with a mutual enemy. It is very hard to predict what the fallout will be when we engage in such activities and the consequences will almost always be bad because will be shown to be unreliable, even dangerous, allies who cannot be trusted.

10 posted on 07/03/2014 9:51:18 PM PDT by vbmoneyspender
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To: vbmoneyspender

we were dangerous allies to have around.


11 posted on 07/03/2014 9:52:38 PM PDT by vbmoneyspender
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To: MinorityRepublican

Bookmark...


12 posted on 07/03/2014 10:04:52 PM PDT by Carriage Hill ( Incoming fire always has the right of way.)
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To: noprogs

You are right. We were supposed to go over there and sit on their heads, but instead we let them do as they please. Did we let Japan do as it pleased after we beat them? No. Germany? No.

We said, you people have caused a lot of problems and now you don’t get to chose, we are going to chose for you.

That is indeed EXACTLY what we should have done in Afghanistan, Iraq, and if we hadn’t screwed that up we could have kept going.

These creeps are still having their global jihad, and we’re just letting them now.


13 posted on 07/03/2014 10:16:32 PM PDT by jocon307 (These people are (some Polish word) crazy)
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To: Viennacon
Washington Compost runs defense for Obama

How's that again?

The author makes the case at considerable length that Obama and Biden are morons because they didn't follow his advice re Maliki. How does that help Obama?

14 posted on 07/03/2014 11:03:27 PM PDT by cynwoody
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To: cynwoody

Because the whole point is we DIDN’T stick with Maliki. We abandoned Iraq too early. They are trying to pin this on Maliki for being sectarian. Yeah, he’s sectarian... so what? They ALL are. The thing is, that would not have been a problem if we had stayed as a residual force.

Ultimately, this is an Obama failure. Iraq was always going to be a crapstorm, but we managed to make it somewhat liveable before the Affirmative Action President pulled the rug out.


15 posted on 07/03/2014 11:09:46 PM PDT by Viennacon (Rebuke the Repuke!)
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To: noprogs
WE ALLOWED THEMTO FORM NEW CONSTITUTIONS BASED ON ISLAM INSTEAD OF FREEDOM OF RELIGION/CONSCIENCE!

Nobody wants to talk about this FACT.

Yes. We denazified Germany. We have failed to deislamify Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course, it would have been politically incorrect to deislamify these lands. After all, the Won wrote in his book, The Audacity of Hope (2006), that he "will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

16 posted on 07/03/2014 11:12:34 PM PDT by cynwoody
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To: Viennacon
Ultimately, this is an Obama failure. Iraq was always going to be a crapstorm, but we managed to make it somewhat liveable before the Affirmative Action President pulled the rug out.

Precisely. And you read it in WaPo, of all places, at this late date in 2014. QED. Better late than never.

17 posted on 07/03/2014 11:15:30 PM PDT by cynwoody
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To: vbmoneyspender
we were dangerous allies to have around.

Obama's America: Harmless enemy, treacherous friend.

Remember, he's a Third World President in his own mind. His mission is to cut America down to size on the international stage.

18 posted on 07/03/2014 11:26:20 PM PDT by cynwoody
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To: MinorityRepublican

We didn’t stick with anybody. We left.


19 posted on 07/04/2014 12:21:11 AM PDT by Jim from C-Town (The government is rarely benevolent, often malevolent and never benign!)
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To: Hoodat

Same story with the current leader of Afghanistan (Karshi???)


20 posted on 07/04/2014 4:14:58 AM PDT by Steven Tyler
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