Posted on 08/12/2014 3:30:57 PM PDT by Kaslin
Is anybody overjoyed, rapturous, bowled over with delight at seeing the United States again involved in Iraq?
No? We can move on then. The United States is involved in Iraq. Concerning which involvement we have two choices: 1) Mess it up, getting lots more people killed than have been killed already; or 2) help the locals to engineer something like a standoff between Iraqis able to pass for reasonable people and those who, on present evidence, might have earned censure from Genghis Khan for excessive devotion to human slaughter.
It may be a while before President Obama figures out what he has gotten himself into -- first on account of prematurely pulling all American troops out of Iraq, second by sending back the Air Force to protect the Iraqi minority known as the Yazidis, along with such Americans as can still be found among our endangered friends, the Kurds.
Americans unhappy over events in Iraq are certain to grow unhappier as Obama -- in-between Democratic fundraisers -- fumbles his way toward alternative No. 2. That's assuming he understands, as may not be the case, how small is the corner into which he has painted himself. He won't do boots-on-the-ground, he promises, but without those boots, what are the chances of deterring the homicidal maniacs who call themselves the Islamic State? Close to zero, one has to guess, based on the maniacs' military successes.
Calling off the air strikes isn't remotely possible so long as the jihadists remain free to range throughout Northern Iraq, killing Christians, Yazidis and anybody else in their way. Now that he is rightly back in Iraq -- because how could he have left all those jihadist victims, present and potential, to die? -- Obama will find how little room he has in which to operate.
Even Hillary Clinton has emerged to do the Maggie Thatcher bit, saying, "Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle." No, it's really not -- even when White House foreign policy insiders give their favorite coined phrase more astringency by replacing "stuff" with an earthier word. What's the strategy here? Mrs. Clinton is asking. What are we trying to do? The reason we're not told is likely that nobody knows the answer. We're making it up as we go.
Wherever we are now in Iraq/Islamic State/Kurdistan terms, our presence there is because of the dynamics of the 2008 presidential election. There was no "organizing principle" then to the Obama outlook on foreign policy -- apart from Obama's desire, shared by much of the electorate, to run as the Un-Bush: peaceful, accommodating, unfriendly to "American exceptionalism." Boy, did he ever pull that one off!
Whatever Bush's missteps and "misunderestimations" as to foreign policy, the much-derided "W" was realist enough to know that maintaining a distance from some problems only makes them worse. The Syrian rebellion -- out of which the Islamic State emerged -- is case in point. When people who say they hate you are getting stronger and stronger, killing more and more of your friends, don't you need at least to ask what might constructively be done about it?
Or is it better just to wait and see what happens, the path our president and his foreign policy team chose on account of ... what? Disdain for Bush and Dick Cheney? Fear of a leftwing-isolationist insurgency among Democrats? Authentic if misguided conviction? All of the above?
The consequences are, in any case, plain to see. The New York Times quotes an Islamic State member who responded to an Internet message. Abu Abu Khadija says, "Yazidi women and children (are) dying from thirst and starvation. I saw them with my own eyes taking their last breath; this scene awakened all my pains and sorrows." Iraq's human rights minister -- without noting the comparable plight of Iraqi Christians -- says the jihadists have now killed at least 500 Yazidis.
Of course, we -- the United States -- refrained from doing "stupid stuff."
Or did we?
That Barry McGuire song “Eve of destruction” comes to mind.
One keeps wondering if there is an upper limit on the stupidity, the fecklessness, the illegality, and the national vandalism this administration wields with all of its arrogance. None sighted yet.
It is like waves hitting the beach...relentless.
It’s the Democrats turn to make war, and get us in another Vietnam.
Funny thing, Obama and Johnson knew just about the same amount about foreign policy, and both are now seeming to be the President that will micromanage that combat.
Obama has no legacy, to decorate his library with, so he is grabbing at straws.
I heard NPR discussing the bombing of IRAQ by US planes and drones. It sounded like they were announcers at a golf tournament. Subdued voices. Quiet tones so as not to disturb the electorate.
If Bush had been in office they would have been announcing with a mix of 10% distain, 20% skepticism and 2% hysteria.
Four bases: Irbil, Balad, Al Faw/mBIAP and Tallil. No problems, no IS. Everybody friends.
They’re paying the price for not allowing permanent US troop presence and a liberal SOFA.
Don’t pussy-foot this. Go for the big win. 100-year leases and decent SOFA. We’ll secure the peace and they’ll be able to export Iraqi, Kuwaiti, SA and Qatari oil to EU in counterbalance to Russia’s petro politics. Everybody wins. Everybody friends.
Option #2: F-the republic and go in via the autonomous states starting with Kurdistan. Write our own rules necessary to secure the area and execute. When the Shia and Sunni catch on we’ll do the same for them. Then Iraq gets to develop and prosper. Otherwise chaos and death is their future.
“Just when I thought I was out.....they pull me back in.”
Dear shineon,
I remember the apoplectic Wolf Blitzer announcing the poll numbers for Bush, once an hour, for hours, on CNN.
I am of the Limbaugh belief:
I hope that this mulatto ‘proboscus weed’ fails, to where his nearest ‘own kind’, spit on the ground at the mention of his name!
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