Obama is not to blame for events in Syria and Iraq

I have been urging that readers should look at events in the context of when those events took place, not through the lens of today's events.

Obama is being blamed for a lot that is happening today in the Middle East, which is a mystery to me. I tend to think the citizenry of the Middle East are to blame for what happens to the citizenry of the Middle East. Why is it Obama's fault? That said, he is blamed primarily for not keeping our troops in Iraq and for not becoming more involved in Syria. Critics today say the horrible events happening today, the complete destruction of Aleppo with thousands dead and the growth of ISIS, would not have happened had Obama been more authoritative.

These events coincided with one another in 2011. Obama's reluctance to get more involved in Iraq and Syria happened at virtually the same time. We must return to that time to judge Obama, not judge him from the standpoint of today's events.

Obama withdrew the remainder of American forces from Iraq in late 2011 in accordance with Bush's SOFA that was signed in late 2008. In 2011 this was done much to the relief of the American public who were weary of ten years of war with 5,000 dead, 30,000 wounded and trillions of dollars spent for counter-productive results and they desperately wanted out. With the help of Bush's SOFA Obama made good a campaign promise which played a major role in his election in 2008. Half-heartedly he tried to renegotiate the SOFA, but to his everlasting relief the Iraqi government didn't cooperate. He had no taste for more war and neither did the American people.

At the very same time all this was happening so was Arab Spring and the beginning of the civil war in Syria. It was at this point some wanted Obama to get pro-active in Syria. In other words, just as we were getting out of one war with the total support of the American people, a small minority of Republicans wanted Obama to get engaged in another war, probably to ensure his defeat in 2012 because at the time that would have been political suicide.

All of that is forgotten by critics of Obama today. They sharply criticize him for his lack of involvement in Iraq and Syria, forgetting entirely that in 2011 that is exactly what the people wanted and the President is paid to do the people's bidding..

The people are not always right, but in this case they were. The course Obama chose was prudent. Critics today are saying that Russia and Iran now control the region. Think about it. Is that a bad thing? Look at the chaos in Iraq, the months long battles for Fallujah, Ramadi, and Mosul. Syria is a failed state. Who wants it? Aleppo is a human tragedy. Major cities, transportation hubs, railroads, and bridges have been destroyed throughout Iraq and Syria. In both countries Islamic terrorists attack mosques, churches, market places, and other soft targets with tremendous loss of innocent life. The terrorist attacks are a daily occurrence.

Ask yourself a question. Do we really want any part of that?

 

What a crock. Obama has the blood of almost 500,000 men women and children from Syria on his hands. He is responsible for the rise of ISIS, since he pulled out like coward he is, and left a power vacuum in Iraq.

 

They are gunna try to blame it all on Bush and say Obama did his best, but America was to racist.

 

I really didn't want our troops keeping the peace in Iraq for a generation trying to westernize those people, and I agree with you that the American people wanted to end our involvement in that war.

I don't criticize Obama for not getting more involved in the Syrian civil war. I criticize him for getting involved in it at all. When the civil war started we fueled that war. We gave diplomatic support to the rebels, demanded that Assad step down, covertly (well, not very covertly) armed and trained the rebels, and threatened to bomb Syria over the somewhat dubious accusation that he had used chemical weapons against his own people.

For some insane reason, Obama and Clinton thought that we should fuel a full-blown civil war and that this was somehow our business. They couldn't just let the Syrians alone, even though that country is not our ally, and its people are not our friends, nor are they anything like us.

And now there are nearly half a million dead.

To make matters worse, in the absence of governance thanks to the war, ISIS consolidated itself in Syria, took territory, and then swept into Iraq. We must now eliminate ISIS.

It is unknown what would have happened if we had just stayed out of it completely as we should have. But whatever would have happened, none of us would have to feel responsible for it.

I criticize Obama and Clinton because we should have just left Syria alone.

 

There was an active war against Terror started by the Bush administration.

And Syria still fits within the scope of that war against terror.

and in 2013 Obama declared.

Obama forced to end or otherwise modify the war on terror because of this.

With the series of events I could say that Obama did inherit something that was caused by the 911 attack, which forced Bush to invade other countries, the war in Iraq which the Bush administration also initiated, and the war on Terror which the Bush administration also made. It's like maneuvering a kite within a created stormy skies.
I could say Obama did his best but the task was really daunting.

 

[video=youtube;7DpBwmN66As]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DpBwmN66As[/video]​

8 Years of Lies and Corruption

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[video=youtube;Gdt1WyhJLNI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdt1WyhJLNI[/video]​

So was Obama Lying to us then or was he lying in 2014 and now?

 

I would actually argue that his failure was in his lack of diplomacy with Russia. A lot of people don't know this, but Russia actually offered to have Assad removed back in 2012, but the US neglected the offer because they believed that Assad was going to fall anyway. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...offer-in-2012-to-have-syrias-assad-step-aside

Had he been willing to work with Russia, much of the bloodshed in Syria could have been avoided. Instead he went the rout of arming the Syrian rebels, which only lead to Russia getting more involved in that war. In the end his decisions only made things worse in Syria. This is an area where Trump is better than Obama, he is willing to work with Russia, however his incentive may have less to do with diplomacy and more to do with conflict of interest

The easy answer is always during the campaign. The president is almost always least truthful during their campaign than any other time during their presidency. The truth is that the status of forces agreement signed in 2008 set a time table which dictated US troops leave Iraq by the end of 2011. The Obama administration made two offers to the Iraqi government to form another status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government. The first one was to keep 10,000 troops in Iraq beyond the original 2011 deadline, then later offered to keep 3,000 troops in Iraq. The Iraqi government rejected both offers, but they did agree to allow up to 3,000 military contractors.

Ultimately it was the Iraqi government who ended the war, Bush did not want to establish a time table, but the Iraqi government was already allowed to be their own sovereign nation, and were threatening to kick US forces out sooner if a time table was not made. Bush eventually gave in to the Iraqi government's demands and met with their president to establish a time table for the US's exit, which is also where this famous shoe throwing incident comes from

 

Not even good spin. Obama had a red line that Assad crossed, using gas on his own people, Obama did nothing. The rest is history. His (weak) foreign policy is even worse than Jimmuh Carter.

 

Yeah, you know the way Carter spent 8 full years at war and bombed 7 different countries

 

It was Obama’s policy to get out of Iraq before Bush ever signed the status of forces agreement; Bush was hamstrung by those “liberals” who never understood what role Iraq played in 9/11:

July 1997, South Movement, "the path of Jihad and proper action": "Those who desire to face up to the Zionists conspiracies, intransigence, and aggressiveness must proceed towards the advance centers of capabilities in the greater Arab homeland and to the centers of the knowledge, honesty and sincerity with whole heartiness if the aim was to implement a serious plan to save others from their dilemma or to rely on those capable centers; well-known for their positions regarding the enemy, to gain precise concessions from it with justified maneuvers even if such centers including Baghdad not in agreement with those concerned, over the objectives and aims of the required maneuvers." (On the 29th anniversary of Iraq's national day (the 17th of July 1968 revolution). President Saddam Hussein made an important comprehensive and nation wide address) http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/countries/Iraq/speech.htm

Iraq deserved what it got, twice.

As for Cotter Pin, he set all the chess pieces in place. I would have voted for Raygun and Max Cleland for Secretary of State, but my Georgia absentee ballot went to Antarctica and I was not in Antarctica. I also told Raygun in 76 at the Regency Hyatt House, “After four years of Carter, they will be begging for you.” It was easy to predict Carter would be a bad president, just as it was easy to predict getting out of Iraq would be a mistake, just as it was easy to say, “do nothing” in Syria until they attacked us. The lukewarm “liberal” arts of war, of containment, caused 9/11 and Syria.

We were too hostile to the Russians when Clinton was president, with regard to the Chechen terrorists. We had an opportunity then.

“When is a real journalist going to put some serious questions about containment in front of the candidates?” http://www.debatepolitics.com/archi...ontainment-post1057590153.html#post1057590153

ISIS is the result of a containment policy.

“It is time to turn the page. When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world’s most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.” (Remarks of Senator Barack Obama The War We Need to Win Wednesday, August 1, 2007)
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/obamasp0807.pdf

“we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;” http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

January 31, 1979:


Air France is so nice.

“Glory be to the Bomb, and to the Holy Fallout. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.”

June 30, 1979: “a weary Jimmy Carter was looking forward to a few days' vacation in Hawaii, as Air Force One sped him away from a grueling economic summit in Tokyo. He had earned it. Two weeks earlier, Carter had successfully concluded the SALT II arms control negotiations with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev in Vienna, the latest in a series of foreign policy achievements since the dramatic Camp David summit the previous September.
Aboard the plane, the phone rang. It was Carter's pollster, Patrick Caddell. "I remember getting on the phone and saying, 'You people have got to come home now,'" Caddell recalls. "We were all saying the same thing: 'You have no idea how bad it is here.'"
The Energy Crisis
That week, the energy crisis that Carter had been trying to avoid since taking office had finally erupted. The OPEC oil producers' cartel had recently announced another in a series of oil price increases that sent gasoline prices skyrocketing and led to severe shortages. Long gas-pump lines and short tempers started in California and spread eastward, focusing Americans' outrage over a seemingly endless economic decline.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/e_malaise.html

July 16, 1979: “Saddam Hussein becomes president of Iraq, after engineering the resignation of president Hasan al-Bakr.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/page/0,12438,793802,00.html

“How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideen”
“Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html

December 1979: “…the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to preserve communism along the Soviet borders. President Jimmy Carter sent U.S. troops to help the Afghans win over the Soviets, starting a chain of events that eventually led to the rise of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4243737

 

Sorry The residual forces part of SOFA was left in Obama's lap by Bush. Obama scarcely even tried to negotiate that part left to him, because of his far too narrow political focus, and an unwillingness to accept the truth of a situation that essentially had no place in his ideology portfolio.

 

So, just to be clear, you would have signed a renewal of the SOFA with the Iraqi government?

 

He and Hillary orchestrated the Arab Spring, without regard of the consequences.

 

I agree that total withdrawal from Iraq was a huge blunder, however the fate of Syria cannot be blamed on Obama. Outside of direct military conflict with Assad he had few options. Rather than create another vacuos, failed state in Syria, all attention should have focused on securing the Iraq / Syria border. Both to stop the spread of ISIS and establish safe havens for Syrian refugees.

 

We can thank Obama personally for all the millions of Islamic invaders who have come to the West after he allowed radical Islamics to take over so much territory without much resistance.

Obama allowed terrorists in who did the carnage in San Bernardino and Ohio State.

Ask yourself, do we really need to issue any visas to any Muslim from bad areas?

Pearl of Wisdom:

 

The Nobel Peace Prize winning president bombed 7 countries Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and now Syria, while Bush bombed 4. Obama and Clinton were obsessed with regime change, but didn't know how to do it. Meanwhile the world is worse off 8 years later...

 

How many Red lines have Assad, Iran and Putin crossed after Obama set them? Hmm, now that's 'Bad Stuff'

[video=youtube;ypW9ptwviRU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypW9ptwviRU[/video]​

HT/ Kurmugeon

 

The fact that Obama and Hillary created and supplied ISIS with weapons using taxpayer money seems to be missed on the part of uninformed Progressive Socialist Left.

 

The US has been making the same stupid mistake for decades. Arming rebels has never worked. Propping up puppet dictators has never worked. Sadly, plan B is always bribery through foreign aid. Pakistan and Turkey have cashed in, and arguably Israel ... though at least Israel's loyalties are never in question ...

 

I am just waiting for these Obama loyalists to start blaming Trump for the entire situation. It is something that they would do with their rejection of facts.

 

Still it falls on BO peep.....it was him and his Team that couldn't handle Maliki. Yet blamed him for what BO and his Team couldn't handle.

 

So you are arguing that we should not judge him for his lack of foresight now that we know what happened, and instead we should only judge him on his political desire at the time to fulfill a campaign promise? Are you being serious ?

 

Don't forget the Russians. Its the Russians fault for stopping Obama. He meant well, he really really did.

 

Yes. The fools don't understand. Obama really, really wanted things to go well. He did.

But the racist homophobe anti-environment Republican birthers kept him from doing the job he intended to do.

Well, that or he was an incompetent ideologue who had no clue how the real world worked and his desire to take America down a peg or two made him unwilling to exert leadership necessary to help solve the problem. .

I can't quite make up my mind on which it was. Hmmmm!

 

but it was literally the status of forces agreement signed by Bush that ended the war in Iraq, and it wasn't pressure from "liberals" that lead to Bush signing the agreement (Bush was in his final term and had nothing left to lose at this point), it was pressure from the Iraqi government. It is true that Bush did not want to sign the agreement, but Iraq was a sovereign nation at this point, and was threatening to kick US forces out immediately if a deadline was not made. The Obama campaign did make a promise for an 18 month deadline before Bush signed the status of forces agreement, but the Obama administration did not follow that campaign promise, but instead exceeded that campaign promise by over year, and kept US forces in Iraq to the legal limit allowed under the status of forces agreement, which was the end of 2011. More than this, the administration made multiple attempts to create a new status of forces agreement that would keep US troops in Iraq beyond the original 2011 deadline, but the Iraqi government rejected all proposals to keep US military forces in their country.

The Iraqi government are the ones who ended the war

There was no residual part of the status of forces agreement, it was a cut and dry deadline that determined US forces would be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. What you are referring to was negotiations for entirely new status of forces agreement to supersede the old one. The Iraqi government rejected the Obama administration's proposal to allow 10,000 US troops to stay in Iraq, so the number was reduced to 3,000.. but the Iraqi government wanted full authority to arrest, trial, and prosecute US troops in their country, so we instead agreed to allow 3,000 military contractors to stay in the country. US military forces left Iraq in accordance to the deadline set in the status of forces agreement signed under Bush, but ultimately it was the Iraqi government's decision

You sound like a Hillary supporter, definitely not an Obama or Trump supporter.

You're undermining the fact that Bush couldn't handle the Iraqi government's demands either, he signed the agreement that kicked US forces out by the end of 2011. Again, it was the Iraqi government that ended the war, Bush didn't want to make a deadline but the Iraqi government demanded it