[DoughtyOne]

Just because Obama sold the Iraqis and our nation out in Iraq, it doesn’t mean that war was pointless.

Iraq is so much better today than it was. It isn’t threatening any other nations. It’s quiet and peaceful there.

Of course that ignores the Obama funded and armed ISIS moving over the landscape. Other than that, Iraq had been quiet and nothing compared to the Hussein years.

That took pressure off the Arab Emirate States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel.

Obama sent in arms and funds to combat the Syrian government. I think his arms and funds wound up as the basis for ISIS. I think he accidentally or even purposefully funded and armed ISIS.

[himno hero]

“purposefully and intentionally”, no accidentally involved.

[stellaluna]

Quiet and peaceful? Mosul is neither right now.

[semaj]

"Iraq is so much better today than it was. It isn’t threatening any other nations. It’s quiet and peaceful there. Of course that ignores the Obama funded and armed ISIS moving over the landscape. Other than that, Iraq had been quiet and nothing compared to the Hussein years."

You forgot the sarcasm tag.

[lentulusgracchus]

Obama sent in arms and funds to combat the Syrian government. I think his arms and funds wound up as the basis for ISIS. I think he accidentally or even purposefully funded and armed ISIS.

I think ISIS has many fathers, none of them necessarily named Obama, no matter how many things he may be guilty of. Walid Shoebat points at the Sunni "creeping theocrats" running the anti-Kemalist (and counterrevolutionary, insofar as it would overturn much of Ataturk's modernization of Turkey) Erdogan regime, which is up to its knuckles in the rise of ISIS. Shoebat (who isn't necessarily spot-on) accuses the Turks of wanting to help re-establish the Caliphate (which they owned), and then dominate it politically. There's also Pan-Turkism, an idea in Turkey that would see the Turkish government reaching out to Turkic peoples from the Mediterranean to the Pacific Ocean (the easternmost Turks live on the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk). A Sunni Caliphate would make a good bolster to the formation of such a far-flung ethnic association. Talk about identity politics ....

[Cronos]

Well, DO -- I believe that Gulf War One was a mistake.

1. Saddam was terrorising the Iranis
2. The Jihadis hated him and he killed them mercilessly
3. The Gulf absolute monarchies feared him and he kept them in check
4. Ultimately he would not have been able to stand up to Turkey and/or Egypt, so there was a natural limit to his powers

If Bush senior had not gone into Gulf War One then

1. Saddam would have got jiahdis like Al Qaeda etc. fighting him for threatening Wahabbiism - remember that Saddam was evil, but he was a secular evil dictator and the Wahabbis hated his ilk
2. He would have taken the money from the re-absorption of Kuwait and used it to continue the war with the Ayatollahs and this time probably won -- or at the least have bled the Iranis so badly they would not have time or money to focus on threatening anyone else
3. Have cowed the Saudis into giving him more money for him so less money going into madrassas across the Moslem world teaching Wahabbiism and spreading the message of jihad
4. Pushed Assad into more of an accomodation with Israel and possibly with Turkey