Sowell: Who Lost Iraq?

Creator Syndicate ^ | June 9, 2015 | Thomas Sowell

[jazusamo]

After the pro-Western government of China was forced to flee to the island of Taiwan in 1949, when the Communists took over mainland China, bitter recriminations in Washington led to the question: "Who lost China?" China was, of course, never ours to lose, though it might be legitimate to ask if a different American policy toward China could have led to a different outcome.

In more recent years, however, Iraq was in fact ours to lose, after U.S. troops vanquished Saddam Hussein's army and took over the country. Today, we seem to be in the process of losing Iraq, if not to ISIS, then to Iran, whose troops are in Iraq fighting ISIS.

While mistakes were made by both the Bush administration and the Obama administration, those mistakes were of different kinds and of different magnitudes in their consequences, though both sets of mistakes are worth thinking about, so that so much tragic waste of blood and treasure does not happen again.

Whether it was a mistake to invade Iraq in the first place is something that will no doubt be debated by historians and others for years to come. But, despite things that could have been done differently in Iraq during the Bush administration, in the end President Bush listened to his generals and launched the military "surge" that crushed the terrorist insurgents and made Iraq a viable country.

The most solid confirmations of the military success in Iraq were the intercepted messages from Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq to their leaders in Pakistan that there was no point sending more insurgents, because they now had no chance of prevailing against American forces. This was the situation that Barack Obama inherited — and lost.

[jazusamo]

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[US Navy Vet]

George HW Bush in 1991.

[SunkenCiv]

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[samtheman]

The most solid confirmations of the military success in Iraq were the intercepted messages from Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq to their leaders in Pakistan that there was no point sending more insurgents, because they now had no chance of prevailing against American forces. This was the situation that Barack Obama inherited — and lost.

Elect a communist, get a disaster.

[jazusamo]

Bump

[kennedy]

I seem to recall President Obama very publicly claiming that he had been victorious in Iraq and that we were "leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq" shortly before pulling all of the U.S.troops.

[mrs ippi]

“George HW Bush in 1991”
There is wisdom in your opinion. We all remember befuddlement when Bush and his advisors pulled out without finishing the job . It was irony to hear in 2001 , ten years after “Desert Storm”, that there were “ WMD” and bad things going on in Iraq. If that had been the case — why do we bring it up 10 years after we had an army there. ? Iraq had nothing to do with 911. In deed, Sadam had destroyed the WMD after 1991. We were imposing a “no fly” zone over Iraq that was never sanctioned by the UN (Look it up)and was called “illegal” by the General Secretary.
I guess what you are saying is that we would have saved $3 trillion dollars and thousands of dead and wounded if bush one has finished it. I agree.

[DoodleDawg]

Sowell: Who Lost Iraq?

The Iraqi's.

[kaehurowing]

A. Obama

B. Obama

C. Obama

D. All of the above

[jazusamo]

You’re exactly right and he was patting himself on the back the whole time.

[jazusamo]

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[Vigilanteman]

True, with a lot of help from BO. One might think it prudent to leave at least some U.S. Force in place to ensure security of the high-tech weapon we gave them as we did in every other victorious war.

But BO was too anxious to bug out so he could keep a promise with his ultra-left base.

The result was that ISIS was able to waltz in in unarmored Toyota pickup trucks and Iraqi defenders of greater numbers and better armed simply skedaddled.

[MrEdd]

Iraq was never held.
Even while the US had troops stationed there hard line Islamists were allowed to execute Iraqis who left Islam under Sharia Law.

This guaranteed that there would not be a counter balancing force large enough to prevent the jihadists from taking control when the western military withdrew.

You had to be pretty damned stupid to expect any other result.

So the correct answer is that no one “Lost Iraq” because we never tried to hold it.

[Theoria]

The Sec. of Defense during the first GW, Dick Cheney has a pretty obvious position at the time:

'Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

[oldbrowser]

Sowell: Who Lost Iraq?

We did.

Just like we lost Viet Nam. Our military won the war and our domestic leaders turned the victory into a defeat out of pure spite.

[Billthedrill]

Don't ask me. I have enough trouble keeping track of my glasses.

If it's any comfort, people have been fighting over what we call Iraq for five thousand years. Everyone who ever thought he'd won it, lost it in the end.

[musicman]

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[DoodleDawg]

True, with a lot of help from BO. One might think it prudent to leave at least some U.S. Force in place to ensure security of the high-tech weapon we gave them as we did in every other victorious war.

The Iraqis did not need anyone's help in making a complete mess of all that the U.S. had done for them. And any troops we had left behind would have been frittered away, dying to support a completely corrupt and wothless Iraqi government that their own people won't fight for.

[Future Snake Eater]

One might think it prudent to leave at least some U.S. Force in place to ensure security of the high-tech weapon we gave them as we did in every other victorious war.

You first. Incompetence and corruption are their chief characteristics over there. We could arm the Kurds, but then we'd a) be fully endorsing the idea that Iraq is, in fact, NOT a unified nation anymore, and b) pissing off our Turkish "allies."