Iraq Withdrawal, a Gift to Iran (We might be throwing away our gains with premature departure)

National Review ^ | 10/24/2011 | The Editors

[SeekAndFind]

If the Iranians pride themselves on playing chess while we play checkers, they never could have expected us to walk away from the board.

But that’s our next move in Iraq. President Obama announced on Friday that all of the roughly 40,000 U.S. troops will leave the country by the end of the year. We are thus handing the Iranians a goal they have sought for years — to remove us from Iraq entirely so they can better influence the country for their ends.

It once seemed that Iraq could be a strategic ally and base for our influence in the Middle East; it now may become both those things for our foremost enemy in the region. The Iranians must think they either are very lucky or — more likely very good. The announcement of our total withdrawal comes just weeks after the revelation of an Iranian plot to execute the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. on our soil. It comes as Iran’s key Arab ally, the Assad regime in Syria, is rocked by a revolt. Just as Tehran’s dangerousness is put in stark relief and as events in Syria threaten to deal it a strategic setback, it gets this windfall.

The Obama administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth on Iraq. On the one hand, it says the total withdrawal is the blessed advent of one of President Obama’s most cherished campaign promises, proof of how committed he’s always been to ending the Iraq War. On the other, it says on background that this is all the Iraqis’ fault, that we wanted to maintain troops on the ground after 2011 but the Iraqis wouldn’t budge. It appears that the first factor played into the second — the administration’s lack of commitment to Iraq was the crucial backdrop to its poor handling of inherently difficult negotiations with the Iraqis.

To continue to maintain troops in Iraq after the expiration of the current deal for our presence at the end of the year, we needed the Iraqis to agree to give our troops immunity. This is obviously always a sensitive issue. And negotiations with the Iraqis over almost anything tend to drag out to the breaking point. None of this should have necessarily deep-sixed a deal, given how many top Iraqi leaders say privately that they want to keep American forces in the country. The Obama administration foolishly insisted that the Iraqi Council of Representatives endorse an immunity deal, a political impossibility. But it’s hard to believe that if the administration truly wanted to make a deal happen it couldn’t have worked something out with enough patience and ingenuity.

Instead, President Obama took to the podium on Friday for a snap announcement of the end of the war. His commanders on the ground wanted to keep more than 20,000 troops in Iraq (the administration had bid this number down to several thousand, perhaps convincing Iraqi political players that cutting a painful deal on immunity wouldn’t have enough of a corresponding upside). Such a force would have enhanced our political leverage in Baghdad, checked Iran’s already considerable influence, ensured against a return of al-Qaeda, and helped keep a lid on Arab–Kurdish tensions in the north. Now, we’ll simply have to hope for the best. Deputy National Security Advisor Dennis McDonough said Iraq is “secure, stable, and self-reliant.” It is none of these things. Its government is still inchoate and it is not capable of defending itself from Iran in the air or on the ground.

Our pullout is a bonanza for Tehran. Its militias were already active in Iraq. Now, it can use Iraq for bases for its proxy forces to spread its tentacles in the rest of the Persian Gulf. Independent ayotollahs in Iraq will have an incentive to keep their heads down. Political decisions of the Iranian-influenced Shiite bloc running the country are sure to begin to tilt more and more Iran’s way. Our diplomatic leverage will diminish, even as maintain our largest embassy in the world in Baghdad. The Iranians will crow in Iraq and throughout the region that they were right that the Americans would eventually leave.

We expended a great deal of blood and treasure to topple Saddam Hussein, and then to establish enough order so that George W. Bush’s successor would only have to consolidate our gains. President Obama is careless enough to risk throwing it all away, and shameless enough to call it success.

[Mr. K]

Another Obama gift to the Muslim Brotherhood?

[Captain Kirk]

Obama is just carrying out Bush’s Status Forces of Agreement which stipulated no more troops after 2011 with no ifs, ands, or buts.. In fact, he wanted to keep troops there longer but the Iraqis said no. If he truly wanted to make a “gift” to the the Muslim Brotherhood, he would have kept them there.

[catman67]

Iraq Withdrawal, a Gift to Iran (We might be throwing away our gains with premature departure)

Might??? Try WILL!!!

[Hodar]

What else would one expect from the Narcisist in Chief? It’s an election year, and he’s desperate to look like he’s accomplished something positive. He has no care, in any conceiveable way, how many lives are lost, how many American lives will be lost, or how many innocent lives will be taken by terrorism.

It’s a shame that the leaders who selfishly make these decisions, never get to experience the consequences of their actions.

[Paine in the Neck]

That malignant tub o’ lard, Muqtada al-Sadr, ought to be back in the news any time now.

[Vaquero]

lets start thinning down our PRESENCE around the world...

as far as I am concerned we SHOULD leave...both Iraq, and Afghanistan...

but do it right...declare victory and leave.

Bin Laden is Dead....KSM is in jail....Anwar al-Awlaki was just killed by drones in Yemen.

let these 3rd world, dark age idiots, live and die by there own hands...and ban any future Islamics from moving to the USA.

we are not wanted nor loved in Europe, Japan and Korea....
so pull them out...we have enough nuclear weapons to prevent a major attack...BUT not a stealth attack across our borders

SO...finally take all remaining military and place them along our southern border (and if necessary our northern border and coasts)....

[joe fonebone]

We are not wanted there by the Iraqi’s.......why stay? ( a broken clock is right twice a day )...time to go home

[BarnacleCenturion]

The Iranian military is falling apart and Iraq is rearming with top notch hardware. I just don’t see Iran trying to take over. And if they were stupid enough to do so, that would be a good thing, as it would provide casus belli for their destruction in defense of Iraq.

[moovova]

Premature departure?

I thought it was more of a premature ejaculation.

[kreitzer]

NR never cared about Obama’s ineligiblility so why do they care about losing Iraq?

[SeekAndFind]

Apparently, my deliberate use of the word ‘departure’ instead of ‘withdrawal’ didn’t prevent this wisecrack from coming (ooops)...

[moovova]

Ha! Thank you, I think :-)

[chiefqc]

While I am overjoyed that our hero’s are coming home, mac daddy could have done this at the beginning of his squatters stay asTPOTUS but waited until HE thought it would help him in is re-election.

All additional hero’s blood his dripping from his hands along with the blood of our most innocent little babies.

[wayoverontheright]

The Iranian military is falling apart and Iraq is rearming with top notch hardware. I just don’t see Iran trying to take over. And if they were stupid enough to do so, that would be a good thing, as it would provide casus belli for their destruction in defense of Iraq.

I agree totally.

The increasing lethality of drone technology also plays a role here. It has created a new battlefield in which bases are not as necessary as they once were. "Boots on the ground" is not how we will have to deal with Iran.

All that said, we should be bombing their nuke facilities now. They have committed acts of war by enabling the opposition to kill our soldiers in Iraq, not to mention the recent botched plan to kill the Saudi ambassador on our soil. We should be swift and unapologetic, as we have the right to frame our actions as defensive and retaliatory.

This is about respect, and the removal of the troops is not injurious to the goal, but failing to act in a punitive manner toward Iran is.

The blunder that Obama is making here is not in removing the troops, but in failing to retaliate properly to the Iranian billigerance, IMHO.

[DJ MacWoW]

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[ChiefJayStrongbow]

TREASON!!!!

[mcshot]

IMHO Iraq will never survive as drawn up. I feel the territory should have been divided to accommodate the tribes. Now they will continue their tribal warfare and Iran will take over. Only the Kurds will have a chance.

[newzjunkey]

And when Ron Paul’s foreign policy leads to increased aggression and disrupted trade routes then what?

[Vaquero]

And when Ron Paul’s foreign policy leads to increased aggression and disrupted trade routes then what?

I am not a Ron Paul supporter by any stretch.

after 9/11 Mr. Paul said it was OUR Fault..all I could think of was decimate the bastards...Paul does NOT speak for me...We needed to fight a war the likes of WWII...

...but once again we fought a weenie war....don't want to kill any non combatants...

for that Allied cause, Curtis LeMay would have bombed a good chunk of the Middle East back to the stone age...and punished them for their sins...

but instead, we used the time honored failure of Vietnamization and now we sit in the middle of a hornets nest without having the populace pacified...

so now we have killed or captured all those who were the architects of 9/11, so WE WIN. BYE.