Republican Senator John McCain has been front and center in the peanut gallery of those screaming that Iraq is falling apart today because Obama withdrew all U.S. troops in 2011.
You’ve probably heard their chicken-and-egg complaint about Obama torpedoing negotiations for a stabilization force to remain in Iraq, indefinitely, by offering a low-ball number of only 300 troops. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (and U.S. generals, aping their Vietnam counterparts) requested 15,000 to 18,000. This is why McCain and crew insist that al-Maliki had no choice but to reject Obama’s offer.
Except that, with rampaging jihadists calling themselves ISIS/ISIL now marching on Baghdad, al-Maliki is so desperate he would’ve thanked Allah if Obama had announced yesterday that he’s offering just 30 instead of 300 U.S. troops.
All the same, Obama should be compelled to explain why he thinks 300 troops will have a stabilizing effect on Iraq today, with a full-scale sectarian war raging, when he clearly thought 3000 were needed in 2011, when Iraq was already relatively stable.
This is the military equivalent of being a little pregnant; or a case of jumping from the frying pan (which Iraq was even under U.S. occupation) into the fire (which it is today). You’d think Obama would know better than to dump U.S. troops in the midst of a foreign civil war/sectarian insurgency, and then propagate the obvious fiction that they will not be engaged in combat. It’s as if he has never heard of the military truism, “mission creep.” Remember, JFK dispatched a few troops as advisers and propagated the same fiction in the early days of the Vietnam War.
Which is why, much to my dismay, Obama could only be doing this to fend off Benghazi-style criticisms, and to avoid the appearance of fiddling while Iraq burns.
(“Sunnis, Shias, Kurds Fighting for Control of Iraq. Stay Out, America!” The iPINIONS Journal, June 19, 2014)
Like I said, just another “march of folly”!
Not to mention the galling sense of entitlement inherent in al-Maliki not only defying Obama’s calls to form a more inclusive government but also dictating to Obama what he needs from the United States to prevent insurgents from blowing Iraq asunder. And all of this is playing out in the backdrop of the Iraqi soldiers the United States spent so many years and billions training just laying down their weapons and surrendering to the insurgents like lambs to the slaughter.
But one could hardly blame the Iraqis; after all, their training over the past 10 years consisted primarily of the United States dressing and equipping them to look like soldiers but having U.S. forces do most of the fighting for them. Which is why, far from building a nation, the United States has created an unruly, yet terminally dependent, monster.
Accordingly, I reiterate that the United States has long since paid its debt (in blood and treasure) for its ill-fated invasion of Iraq. And that, notwithstanding General Powell’s Pottery Barn (you-break-it-you-own-it) doctrine, the best thing the United States can do for Iraq at this point is to leave it to its own devices.
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Sunnis, Shias, Kurds fighting for control…