Who's to Blame for the Mess in Iraq?

Who's to Blame for the Mess in Iraq?

by James Zogby | huffingtonpost.com | Posted: 05/23/2015 10:59 am EDT
Excerpts:

"Despite the prolonged U.S.-led coalition bombing campaign, the so-called "Islamic State" (IS)recently won victories in Iraq expanding the area under its control. In the wake of these advances, fingers of blame have been pointing in every direction. Democrats continue to blame President Bush for beginning the war, in the first place, while Republican candidates are attempting to turn the tables by blaming President Obama for abandoning Iraq. The initial fault for this mess must be placed at the doorstep of the Bush Administration."

"They lied us into the war, dismantled Iraq's institutions and then badly mismanaged the occupation, attempting to restructure the country's governance by introducing a dangerously flawed system of sect-based representation. I agreed with the president when he observed that we needed to end the war in Iraq more responsibly than we began it. He inherited not only the war and the occupation, but an agreement his predecessor had negotiated with the Iraqis requiring U.S. forces to leave at the end of 2011."

.......

"It's important to recall where we and the Iraqi people were in 2011. In September of that year, I was commissioned to do a poll of Iraqi, Iranian, U.S. and broader Arab public opinion in advance of the U.S. departure. What we sought to learn was how all sides viewed the war and their expectations for Iraq following the U.S. withdrawal. The results were disturbing and foretold the crisis Iraq was to face in the future. Most notable were the deep divisions among Iraq's three major groupings: Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs and Kurds. In the United States, there was a significant partisan divide."

"All these patterns played out in response to almost every question asked in the poll. For example, when we asked "are Iraqis better off or worse off than they were before American forces entered the country?" we found that Iraqis were conflicted, with about one-half of both Shia and Sunni Arabs saying that they were "worse off," while 60 percent of Kurds said they were "better off." On the U.S. side, 58 percent of Republicans said Iraqis were "better off" -- completely disconnected from the reality experienced by most Iraqis. Only 24 percent of Democrats held this view."

read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/whos-to-blame-for-the-mess-in-iraq_b_7427588.html
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IMO: When you look at the reflections of the Iraqi civilians, the Iraqi soldiers, the American republicans, the American Democrats, and World Opinion, you will surely get 5 different opinions - all different in severity. But actually, the fault lies directly with the Bush Administration because Barack Obama was still in Illinois government when G.W. Bush bypassed Congress and invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003.

Iraqis judged their quality of life based on their sects which were political in nature, and Americans based their thoughts on the Iraqi Bush War as political in nature, republicans seeing the war's impact as positive, and Democrats judging the Bush War as having made life worse for Iraqis.

Asked how they felt about the U.S. withdrawal, three quarters of Americans said they were happy. But only 22 percent of Iraqis said they were 'happy' with another 35 percent saying they were worried. While a majority of Shia Arabs and Kurds were optimistic, almost two thirds of Sunni Arabs were pessimistic.

Six in ten Iraqis wanted a Democracy while another six in ten said that Democracy would not work in their country. What is most disturbing is the degree to which Americans have let politics trump history. The facts of how we got into the Iraq War remains clear, war crimes by Americans have been proven with no justice meted out for the perpetrators, thus no redemption for the American citizens, who will bear the brunt of world opinion in years to come.

 

There's a significant body of evidence that Bush & Cheney lied us into this war. And there's compelling evidence that Obama and crew botched things up even further due to misplaced optimism and incredible naivete about the middle east.

I blame the Brits for this abortion. They're the ones who drew the arbitrary lines on the map that constitute modern day Iraq.

 

Obsess with blaming Bush, ignore that Dems (including the anointed Queen Hillary) demanded a second vote so they could all vote in favor of using force, blame Bush again...

Rinse, lather, repeat as needed.

 

I initially supported the Iraq invasion in hopes it would bring about democracy. But the anti-war crowd was right. It was a horrific mistake.

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Buck stops with the president who desired the war. Quit giving excuses.

 

My answer may be thought to be irrelevant to some of you but here it goes: as with Vietnam, no war can be won unless and until you get the support of the majority of a nation's population. The problem with Vietnam as it is with Iraq is that the USA government never bothered to ask for the consent of the people to invade their countries. Because of that the government never got support from the majority of those countries citizenry.

The USA has lost this war, not because of President Obama as some right wing pundits have said, because it did not and will NEVER get the majority of Iraq's citizens to support this illegal war.

 

The buck stops with POTUS?? Someone should drop that memo off at the current occupant of the White House then.

 

I think the Brits and the Bush Administration were both following the precedent set by the B. Clinton administration, which basically, with the signing of the Iraqi Liberation Act in '98, set the stage for everything that came later.
GWB carried out the terms of that Act, but Obama dropped the ball. The Brits played a role, but I think it was secondary.

Now, many are suffering and the Middle East is threatened by religious extremists.

The question is - do we care enough about "those people" to clean it up - again?

I think not.

 

The ISIS trouble started when?

 

Clearly you didn't read the link.

BOTH share blame, but we all know who had a hard-on for this fabulous social experiment and started it by stupidly stirring the hornet's nest.

 

Iraq has been a mess for a long time , we didn't help but are hardly the only reason l.

 

NO! That's racist!

 

I'm sorry but when you've had a job for 6 years and your suppose to be the CEO anything that happens within the organization is your fault. Only morons and Kool-Aid drinkers will continue to give Obama a pass and blame everything on Bush. If Obama were the CEO of a business he would have been fired long ago. I guess it's just more evidence suggesting he is the king of the no responsibility crowd.

 

ISIS is the JV team and nobody has any need to think twice about them. Osama Binladin is dead and peace is breaking out all over the middle east. The Obama deserves the credit for the victory in the middle east and all the oil that the war there was fought for.

 

Nah, Saddam was no picnic but he was zero threat to US and held the country together.

Democracy was a dumb idea destined to fail, and Poppy warned Junior about it but sadly he listed to "a Higher Father".

These people don't know WTF to do without their strong-arm dick-tater.

 

Do you believe all effects are caused instantaneously by causes, or is there sometimes an incubation period?

 

Iraq was stable in 2002.

 

2007, when they were founded.

 

I don't think that misplaced optimism had much to do with things in the Obama White House.

The reality is that the US economy nearly completely collapsed in 2008-9, and there was no popular support anywhere in the US for a prolonged large scale military occupation of a country that was barely stable.

Some conservatives adhere to the idioyic notion that Iraq could be held by a "token"force. This kind of thinking is what led to the Marine Barracks attack in Lebanon in the 1980's.

Other right wingers have no answer at all, but want to point the finger.

Of course, there isn't an answer, save letting the crisis play itself out, or organizing a real international coalition to occupy the Levant. Only one of these is likely.

 

The trouble started when Bremmer sent the army home with their guns.

The command structure in ISIS is made up of officers in Sadaam's army. It's one of the reasons why they are successful.

 

We're on the cusp of a Presidential campaign (actually we're knee deep in one). Seems a good time for the national discussion we should have had as a country before we went into Iraq.

Are we prepared to pay the price in money and blood to be the cop on the beat in one of the roughest neighborhoods in the world? And are we prepared to be there indefinitely?

 

Ask the people living under saddam whether it was a mess or not. Such as his sons wedding day rape victims

 

So you believe all war propaganda??

 

Margot , try not to use logic fallacy if you are going to have discussions with the big boys.

 

Of course there's an incubation period and a beginning point. That point was in 1978 when Jimmy Carter and Brezinski cooked up Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan.

 

The people that live there.