Posted on 05/19/2015 9:43:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The seizure of Ramadi on Sunday leaves President Obamas strategy against the Islamic State in ruins not only in Iraq but also throughout the Muslim world. It means that the Iraqi security forces will almost certainly not be able to recapture Mosul this year and, therefore, that the Islamic State will retain its largest city in Iraq. Worse, it gives the group momentum again in Iraq even as it gains ground in Syria and expands in the Sinai, Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere. This defeat was avoidable.
Neither the Islamic State nor any other al-Qaeda offshoot has ever taken a major urban area actively defended by the United States in partnership with local forces. This is what happens when a policy of half-measures, restrictions and posturing meets a skillful and determined enemy on the battlefield. If the president does not change course soon, he will find that his legacy is not peace with Iran and ending wars, but rather the establishment of a terrorist state with the resources to conduct devastating attacks against the United States and a region-engulfing sectarian war.
Obama reacted slowly and reluctantly to the initial Islamic State surge last June from Syria into Mosul and then down the Tigris toward Baghdad. He authorized U.S. air support to assist the defense of the Kurdish capital of Irbil in August and eventually deployed first a few hundred and then a few thousand U.S. advisers.
He did not allow those advisers to fight alongside the Iraqi units they were assisting. U.S. airstrikes have destroyed many fixed Islamic State targets and killed its fighters by the thousands since then, mainly in Iraq, but have allowed the group to retain a haven in Syria and even to maneuver freely within Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I think that's exactly what Obama wants... with the destruction of Israel being at the top of his wish list.
The message is that neither Obama nor the Shia wanted the city. Like the other similarly ceded cities in what was formerly Iraq, Ramadi has been ceded to the Sunni currently operating as ISIL.
The action is in reality establishing the border between the two de facto states.
The question becomes Baghdad? My guess is that the Sunni’s are unwilling to pay the cost that will be placed on the city by the Shia.
Islam made Iraq impossible.
To change Iraq you have to remove Islam
I don’t care what kind of stupid fantasy world you live in.
We should have taken Sadam out in ‘91 and left Iraq in rubble.
After that we should have also pulled out of Saudi Arabia and just gone in with repeat leveling of infrastructure as needed.
Occupation only makes sense if you are willing to do what is required to effect a change. In this case that would have meant cracking down on the enforcement of Sharia law, particularly the executions of those who leave the religion.
Did we do that?
You whine and snivel a lot but you utterly fail to explain how there could be any change in Iraq sans the steps I have outlined.
You might just think about actually studying Islam before you argue with those of us who have.
I went into the Marines during the Iranian hostage crisis, and I have studied this for decades. As well as spending my time in the big litter box across the sea.
Without Sharia law, young people leave the religion.
No fear of death and they embrace leasure pursuits...other religions, sexual intimacy, all those forbidden things.
If you that for fifty years you would have a secular society that can resist re-establish mentioned of an Islamic state.
If you don’t do that, then (as soon as whatever occupying force you have pulls out) the collaborators with the west will be executed per the Koran, those who left the faith will be executed per the Koran, and it will be as if you never went in.
A predictable and repeating cycle which we have seen on auto play since the fall of the Ottomans.
because they are killing many non-muslims in the process, as well as anybody over there that they can find who had helped us during the Iraq War.
they are also recruiting terrorists in Europe and North America to carry out attacks on our own soil.
The Pentagon just said that it’s up to the Iraqi government to decide whether to retake Ramadi. That’s pretty much in sync with your analysis. It’s hard to view that as anything but a surrender.
Reluctantly .... the WPO admits it’s O.
Nothing to thank you for.
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