Tag Archives: Nouri al-Maliki

Hope And (Regime) Change

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Our drive-by intervention accomplished regime change in Libya, but the country has still not recovered from its liberation. [Credit: National Post]

Our dri­ve-by inter­ven­tion accom­plished regime change in Libya, but the coun­try has still not recov­ered from its lib­er­a­tion. [Cred­it: Nation­al Post]

The Con­sti­tu­tion requires Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to leave office in 700 days.  If he has his way, Vladimir Putin and Ben­jamin Netanyahu will pre­cede him into pri­vate life.

It should not be sur­pris­ing that a Pres­i­dent who prides him­self on refus­ing to nego­ti­ate with elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives has so lit­tle patience with some of his fel­low nation­al lead­ers.  Or that regime change has become a lead­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Pres­i­den­t’s for­eign pol­i­cy.   Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Winning By Not Winning In Iraq and Syria

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U.S. airstrikes have slowed the progress of Islamic State fighters, but the war may drag on for years. Why that's good for us. [Credit: Telegraph]

U.S. airstrikes have slowed the progress of Islam­ic State fight­ers, but the war may drag on for years. Why that’s good for us. [Cred­it: Telegraph]

The Pres­i­dent was asked a sim­ple ques­tion a few weeks ago: are we win­ning the war against the Islam­ic State?

He wouldn’t answer the ques­tion direct­ly, so I will.  We’re win­ning in Iraq and Syr­ia by not win­ning.  The net effect of our actions has so far been to keep extrem­ist Mus­lims of var­i­ous eth­nic­i­ties and sec­tar­i­an pas­sions engaged in war against … each oth­er.  And that may be the best pos­si­ble out­come in the cir­cum­stances. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Iraq: In Search Of An Organizing Principle

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The President has decided to fight jihadists threatening to kill Yazidis with bombs instead of hashtags. But it's not clear why. [Credit: Business Insider]

Sun­ni rad­i­cals are threat­en­ing to mas­sacre an obscure eth­nore­li­gious group known as Yazidis.  The Pres­i­dent has decid­ed to fight the jihadists with bombs instead of hash­tags. But it’s not clear why. [Cred­it: Busi­ness Insider]

“Great nations need orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ples, and ‘Don’t do stu­pid stuff’ is not an orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple.” For­mer Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton.

Anoth­er August.  Anoth­er flir­ta­tion with war.  In the psy­chodra­ma that is the Oba­ma Pres­i­den­cy, our hero vac­il­lates between war and peace, detach­ment and inter­ven­tion, rid­ing out the storm and steer­ing into its teeth.  The rest of us are left to guess whether he will respond to the next human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis with bombs or hash­tags.  There is, as Mrs. Clin­ton notes, no “orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple” to lend coher­ence to our for­eign pol­i­cy. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

President Bush Not To Blame For This Iraq Crisis

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Iraq appears on the verge of civil war and some blame former President George W. Bush. Here's why they're wrong. [Credit: al Jazeera America]

Iraq appears on the verge of civ­il war and some blame for­mer Pres­i­dent George W. Bush. Here’s why they’re wrong. [Cred­it: al Jazeera America]

The Iraq civ­il war did not start under Oba­ma, it start­ed when Bush, Cheney and the neo­cons pulled the trig­ger to invade Iraq … . It was [the] sta­tus of force agree­ment, signed by Bush, that pledged to with­draw all US forces … Giv­en the stag­ger­ing cost of expense and lives we could not stay there “maybe a hun­dred years” as McCain said. Nor could we bleed hun­dreds of bil­lions of dol­lars there every year. Oba­ma promised to get us out of there, and he right­ly did so … To attempt to blame any­one but Bush, Cheney and the neo­cons for the Iraq dis­as­ter is sim­ply revi­sion­ism at its finest. —  Excerpt­ed from a comment on my recent post on Iraq.

The Oba­ma presidency’s lead­ing malfea­sance lies in its belief that find­ing some­one to blame for a prob­lem is as good as solv­ing it.  So it is lit­tle sur­prise that my recent post on Iraq, in which I argued against US mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion, would spur com­ments that for­mer Pres­i­dent George W. Bush is to blame for the renewed fight­ing. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Have We Bungled Our Way To Success In Iraq?

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A radical Islamist group called ISIS made major advances this week in Iraq. President Obama is reviewing his options. Is the best bet to let Sunni and Shiite radicals fight it out? [Credit: AP]

A rad­i­cal Islamist group called ISIS made major advances this week in Iraq. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is review­ing his options. Is the best bet to let Sun­ni and Shi­ite rad­i­cals fight it out? [Cred­it: AP]

“We’re leav­ing behind a sov­er­eign, sta­ble and self-reliant Iraq, with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment that was elect­ed by its peo­ple.” – Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Decem­ber 15, 2011

The Pres­i­den­t’s illu­sion that we accom­plished our mis­sion in Iraq evap­o­rat­ed this past week, when Sun­ni mil­i­tants call­ing them­selves the Islam­ic State of Iraq and Syr­ia (ISIS) and fly­ing the black flag of Islamism over­ran Mosul and Tikrit. The embat­tled Iraqi gov­ern­ment still holds Bagh­dad, but its sov­er­eign­ty, sta­bil­i­ty and self-reliance have been exposed for the arti­fice they long have been.

The truth is that things began to unrav­el in Iraq two and a half years ago, when we declared vic­to­ry and with­drew our troops. “This is the start of the Iraqi civ­il war that was so obvi­ous­ly going to break out after we washed our hands of it,” Ken­neth M. Pol­lack of the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion told the Wash­ing­ton Post.

Yet this lat­est in a series of for­eign pol­i­cy fail­ures may actu­al­ly work to our advan­tage.  Hav­ing Sun­ni and Shi­ite mil­i­tants and the Iran­ian Army cross­ing swords in Iraq may not be the worst thing from the per­spec­tive of US interests.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →