Posted on 06/13/2014 6:44:03 AM PDT by Rennes Templar
The end of the Iraq war in 2011 was a high point of President Obama's first term, marking the completion of one of his most important campaign promises. But as Islamic militants capture cities and towns throughout Iraq and march toward the capital, Baghdad, the president once again faces the criticism that his foreign policy has failed.
The violence has swept Iraq just two and a half years after the last U.S. troops departed following a nearly nine-year war. The gains made during the war have been wiped out with the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The group's advance raises questions that will likely dog the president during the remainder of his time in office, from whether U.S. forces should have stayed behind, to how he might have tried to alter the course of events in recent years, to whether a similar policy in Afghanistan is doomed for failure.
Experts almost entirely agree that Mr. Obama could have done things differently, but differ on the question of how much blame he bears for the situation, when he might have changed course, and even whether it would have substantially changed the situation.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Even if it’s not his fault, it’s his responsibility.
What has he done with that responsibility?
Folks, I’m amazed if people don’t understand that because of their backgrounds, Obama, Kerry and Hagel, all WANT to lose in Iraq.
That is what they insisted on in Vietnam. Liberals are sick.
*8Is the violence in Iraq Obama’s fault? **
Yes
You have to wonder who is most responsible for Iraq being a soft shell of a target. After all of the external support, the Syrian terrorist/rebels couldn’t displace Assad—but just rolled all over the US trained and financed Iraqi army.
Was it Bush’s fault for getting us there in the first place? Or Obama’s for withdrawing and claiming victory? Or Maliki’s for running an incompetent government and not working with the US?
Or was Iraq predestined to split along the three lines of a new Kurdistan, a Sunni middle, and a Irani/Shiite dominated southeast?
Only half his fault. The white half.
Obama Cant Blame Bush for this any longer. He owns this one. Something like 75% of wounded and dead Americans happened after Obama took office. And Obama don’t care. He really is a sad person.
the liberals will blame it on Bush, saying that we shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
In the Era of Obama, nothing can ever be the fault of Obama or his policies.
Obama and his boys do not take responsibility for anything. In the case of Iraq, they will say he inherited an impossible situation.
It doesn’t matter that every president inherits existing problems. Obama is unique, because nothing can ever be his fault or his responsibility, or have bad things happen due to the failure of his policies.
(sarcasm)
Hash Tag #ObamasfaultIraqisaredying
Seems as tho’ there’s a bunch of ignorant officials involved in this debacle...Who is going to stand up and take responsibility? Certainly not the officer quoted at the end of this excerpt!!! I can’t believe anyone with any smarts could even make a statement like that. Googling doesn’t bring up any current info on him.
The US meanwhile has closed Camp Bucca, once its largest prison in Iraq. The Pentagon says it’s transferred Bucca’s remaining 180 prisoners to two jails near Baghdad. US Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth King said the prison’s closure comes as part of the US-Iraq security deal.
Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth King: “As a show of progress for the security agreement and moving forward the government of Iraq, we’re going to put the theater internment facility as a piece of history. And we’re going to — it will be history, and we’ll move forward from here and progress.”
What is his fault is the wiping away of all the gains our military made in Iraq, and the role our withdrawal from the region played in the establishment of a rump Islamic state.
We'll still be paying for that withdrawal fifty years from now.
Yes. We’ve been cyber-screaming about this for a few years on FR. The arms and training Obama is giving to the opposition to Assad in Syria are in ISIS’s control. It would be worse, far worse, if they were to topple Assad.
The only “fault” of Bush is that when we had everything in the world in Iraq, he should have taken out Syria as well and done the hard work. Also should have pressured the hell out of Iran and maybe reduced their nuke and other capabilities.
But yes, if Obama wasn’t a cowardly leftist who can’t consider helping Iraq, none of this would have been necessary. He easily could have taken lots of actions to prevent this, from a continued US presence, to effective action in Syria.
And how about even having a clue that this was about to happen?
Obama trades 5 top Taliban leaders for one deserter. And pretty much capitulates on terrorism by releasing others, too, from Afghan prisons.
Within a month, a terrorist group that hardly had an impact in Iraq takes over a large swath of a country that managed two separate elections and handover of government from one president to another - something Afghanistan has yet to achieve.
Obama’s total weakness led to the loss of a nation Bush won.
yes
Syria wasn’t even on the frick radar except as the place Saddam took his weapons of mass destruction.
Maybe a large city newspaper will conduct such a poll and a freeper will see it and post a link to it here. I for one would like to see the results
Exactly, Obama doesn’t care and likely never saw the US progress there as a “gain” anyway. He obviously doesn’t give a damn about the soldiers.
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