>>Mod Warning<< Thoughts on the War in Iraq

If you actually believe this then you must think that either Obama is stupid or corrupt. Stupid because he abandoned Iraq with Iran lurking over the border or corrupt because he understood what would happen after all US military, intelligence, and governance personnel left. Which is it ??

 

So which is it - Obama the stupid or Obama the corrupt ??

 

McCain and Romney were unelectable nationwide.

One is a poor moron and the other is a rich moron.

And both are as exciting as drying paint.

 

Exactly !!

BHO simply capitalized on this mood.

Same as Nixon had.

 

People forget one huge thing about the conduct of the invasion of Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq did not take place as the Pentagon planned and recommended. The U.S. plan was for the 4th Infantry Division, staging out of Turkey to simultaneously invade Iraq from the north. The 4th Infantry Division would've plunged into the Sunni triangle and caught the most diehard Saddam Hussein B'aathist supporters in a vise. Most likely far fewer of them would've survived to raise havoc in the aftermath.

But almost at the last minute, Turkey balked at allowing the 4th Infantry Division to use their territory. The Turks only allowed overflights of combat aircraft by the U.S.

The 4th Infantry Division had to head to Iraq by going back through the Eastern Med through the Suez Canal around Saudi Arabia and disembark in Kuwait.

 

That's absurd. US personnel were in Iraq to ensure that the Iranian influence would not influence the Iraqi government. When we left Iran basically took over. It's the same as what would have happened if Truman had pulled out of Europe, Japan, and Korea in 1947. Oh wait, we did pull out of Korea - how did that turn out ?? We went back in, lost a lot of fine young men, and brought security back to South Korea which is now one of the most robust economies in the world. And we still have tens of thousands of troops in Europe, Japan, and Korea (~ 30K).

 

You haven't made a case for either. Leaving Iraq was the will of the people AND the right thing to do. Most Trump fans wanted out of Iraq and Afghanistan as I recall.

 

Obama had very little choice. He had planned on leaving some residual troops as the drawdown date was closing in and was negotiating leaving some troops in Iraq. The talk was at first 10,000, but then it got dwindled down to a much smaller number (perhaps around 1000 - 2000 troops). Would that have been enough to keep ISIS at bay? Highly doubtful. You could say Iraq was "stable" in 2011 because there weren't high number of ISIS terrorists there. But politically, it was not. Maliki refused to allowed US troops to remain because of pressures from the Iraqi people to push out American troops because they were viewed as invaders.

If Saddam was still alive along with this army, Iraq may have never been in this predicament. Regime change have never been good, yet junior Bush failed to recognize this. Daddy always knew best.

 

History has made the case of what happened in the ME after Obama left. That's settled. What is not settled is whether Obama was stupid or corrupt.

 

What is settled is we should never have been there in the first place

 

Please explain why we were there in the first place?? The WMD angle was and still is....a farce. We cannot be in the business of regime change.

 

It is my understanding that the Iraqi government insisted that U.S. troops remaining in Iraq be under their jurisdiction because the Obama Admin. was willing to allow only a few thousand troops to remain. The Iraqi government wasn't willing to spend the political capital to allow Americans troops to remain there outside of Iraqi jurisdiction if that's all the Obama Admin. was willing to commit.

If the Obama Admin. had been willing to keep 30-40 Americans troops there, the Iraqis almost certainly would've agreed to allow them to remain outside their legal jurisdiction.

 

You oppose all American overseas military interventions don't you?

 

History will show the stupidity that is Bush and the failure of regime change. If Saddam was still alive, there would be no ISIS.

 

Why not? I see it as a good thing for the U.S. to eliminate foreign regimes that oppose us when we can do so for relatively low costs.

 

That's also absurd. A residual force of 25,000 US military, intelligence, and governance personnel would have provided the security needed for the fledgling constitutional republic in Iraq to succeed. Sunnis, Shia, women, Christians all had representation. When Obama pulled out the Sunnis were purged at the direction of Iran who were sitting on the border. Pulling our troops out of Iraq was the biggest foreign policy blunder since Neville Chamberlain (and he may have been stalling for time for the British military to build up).

 

I KNOW that Bush put Maliki in charge.

And, Maliki was absolutely and positively KNOWN to be Shiite with strong leanings to Iran. More than half Iraq is Shiite. America came to the party with a gigantic disadvantage for that reason, for the reason that we abandoned them when Bush41 encouraged a revolution, and for various other reasons.

You would need to propose something that could be done by Obama (or Trump) to change that.

 

Nope. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan. They attacked us. Iraq did not

 

LOL....you seriously think 30 troops will have prevented ISIS??

 

Going there in the first place was the biggest blunder in history

 

If Obama had not pulled out there would have been no ISIS. The Bush surge basically destroyed AQI which formed the nucleus of ISIS. They would never have been allowed to grow in Syria with US troops in Iraq.

 

If Bush does not invade Iraq there is no Isis

 

30K. Sometimes it is useful to watch for obvious typos.

 

Iraq INVASION was a terrible mistake, one we will be dealing with the consequences for decades.

 

Destroying a dictator who supported terrorism world wide and establishing a constitutional republic was a blunder ?? That's amazing logic.