Iraq quickly fracturing along ethnic and religious lines
Obama’s laissez faire attitude towards Iraq has led us from this good news to its opposite:
The insurgents came at midday, walking across a canal, advancing under cover of mortar fire toward the cluster of three Iraqi villages.
Within eight hours, Shiite residents who fled said the Sunni insurgents had expelled thousands of them from the majority-Sunni province, helped by local Sunnis in neighboring villages.
“They hit us with mortars and mortars, and the families fled, and they kept hitting us. It was completely sectarian. The Shiites, out,” he said.
Some will say “Let them kill each other; it was bound to happen.” I say this was not inevitable at all, and an ounce of prevention would have been worth a megaton of a cure that won’t be provided anyway. I am certain there are plenty of people in Iraq who would like to wash their hands of the whole struggle and live their lives in peace—although I have no idea what percentage of the population could be described that way—and they will suffer greatly because of this.
What’s more, ISIS has designs on us. Make no mistake about it. And this empowers them greatly in terms of money, support, arms, people, and territory.
And they’re showing what happens to those who ally with the west against them:
Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman, the Iraqi judge who presided over former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s 2006 trial, has been captured and executed by the Islamic fundamentalist group ISIS, according to a report from the Egyptian newspaper Al-Mesyroon.
Abdel-Rahman’s execution was reportedly labeled as revenge for the death of Hussein. While his death has not yet been confirmed by the Iraqi government, Jordanian MP Khalil Attieh appeared to confirm the development on Monday.
“Iraqi revolutionaries arrested him and sentenced him to death in retaliation for the death of the martyr Saddam Hussein,” Attieh wrote on his Facebook page.
Remind me again why Obama couldn’t have let loose a few bombs on ISIS when it was amassing, about to attack, and vulnerable? He was warned.
“He was warned”
That post is about warnings over the last few months, but ISIS took Fallujah in January! How much more warning is necessary than that?
Remember Iraq as it was painfully recently, and what Iraq meant to us (“strategic partner”):
President Obama, May 19, 2011:
Statement on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq website:
“What’s more, ISIS has designs on us.”
This actually makes it easier, legally speaking, for Obama to intervene in the crisis.
As far as I can tell, there’s no security agreement (treaty) with Iraq and there’s no UNSC resolution for Iraq for us to enforce per PL 102-1 and PL 107-243. But if ISIS threatens the US, then counter-terror law and policy, such as PL 107-40, apply to prevent a terrorist attack, and of course, if ISIS actually attacks the US or US entity (possession, terrority, armed forces), then the President can always react to an actual physical attack.
“Some will say “Let them kill each other; it was bound to happen.””
What would have happened to Germany and Korea or any of our post-WW2 occupations if we had left at the 8 year mark, 1953? Remember, the US approach to the Cold War wasn’t a certainty at that point.
Amis have gotten tired of power and winning. Now they will feel what defeat means.
When the troops were pulled out of Iraq I knew mass killings and genocide attempts by one side or the other would happen – and that no one would care, even though it was all preventable by leaving a few thousand troops.
Something I realized soon after high school nearly three decades ago was that the whole “never again” of the Holocaust was a load of crap -Americans would, and have let, mass exterminations happen again and again in my own lifetime with barely batting an eye. Maybe some tut-tutting from Clinton here or a finger wag from McCain there, but by and large Americans will go to the malls, watch their big screen TVs and drink their giant cokes blissfully while millions in another part of the world are slaughtered.
But take away their cable internet, and you’ll see riots…
—–
I just noticed I unconsciously wrote “their” about speaking of fellow Americans, and it’s a sign of how split a country we’re becoming as well. Perhaps Iraq is our own future…
What you call “fracturing” is what the people of the Middle East call “self-determination.”
The reason there’s sectarian and ethnic violence in Iraq and throughout the Middle East is because the peoples there were denied the opportunity of forming self-governing nations founded on cultural and ethnic ties. The secret and immoral Sykes-Picot Agreement imposed on the region after WWI deliberately forged artificial political units that were unstable and easier to dominate.
It’s the same strategy the empire-builders and leftists are utilizing today in this country, only they’re importing ethnic and sectarian division through immigration.
“When the troops were pulled out of Iraq I knew mass killings and genocide attempts by one side or the other would happen — and that no one would care, even though it was all preventable by leaving a few thousand troops.”
It would not be preventable under the command of this CINC. Had a residual security been left in place, BHO would have skedaddled asap under the present circumstances. But he didn’t want to negotiate to do so. He wanted failure. He wanted GWB’s accomplishments to end in chaos. He wants the entire middle east in chaos. He failed to support the green revolution in Iran, he lead from behind to turn Libya in a chaotic hot bed of jihad, he worked to bring his partners the Moslem Brotherhood to power in Egypt.
How many generations will it take for any country to want the US as an ally? Chairman O has done harm beyond the terrible economy and the hopeless outlook for our youth. We will not have the Reserve currency for trade in the world for much longer. Some of our major cities resemble third world areas, perhaps the UN will take pity and send us aid.
Luckily John Kerry went over there today, gave a speech, and told the Iraqis to shape up and get their act together. That should fix things.
parker: “He wanted failure.”
That’s what sticks me worst about Obama. While I have a distinct preference for US foreign policy that I’ll argue for, I understand the pros and cons of the various schools of US international relations.
Obama could have made a clean break from Bush’s post-9/11 liberal internationalism and gone the libertarian isolationist route or the IR realist polar route. I wouldn’t have liked it, but I could have respected it.
Instead, Obama has retained liberal foreign policy standards on paper while undertaking actions that could hardly have been designed better for a liberal foreign policy to fail. It’s as though, as you said, Obama is deliberately trying for the US to fail. Not just change course, but fail.
That impression struck strongest while reading the White House background brief on US actions with Syria:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/30/background-briefing-senior-administration-officials-syria
In fact, the US has intervened in the Syria crisis, except not in ways that are constructive. Again, we see the Obama administration taking actions that seem designed for US foreign policy to fail.
Old Rebel,
The two basic flaws in your analysis are, one, alien populations aren’t being mass imported into Iraq other than the “self determination” terrorist invasion; and two, Iraq, as does the US, possesses a national identity as well as regional, sectarian, etc, identities.
While a federated model seems to make sense for Iraq, the diverse Iraqi people have not opted to split up Iraq. It’s telling that aggressive outside forces have been required to make sectarian differences in Iraq look like a sectarian civil war.
Neo,
FYI, my comment at June 23rd, 2014 at 8:59 pm was placed in ‘awaiting moderation’.
“I am certain there are plenty of people in Iraq who would like to wash their hands of the whole struggle and live their lives in peace.”
In my opinion that would describe MOST people anywhere. But, also most people will take sides because they know that there is no other way.
How many people went along with the Nazis (sorry for invoking Godwin’s law) because they felt it would be easier for themselves?
When good men let the evil ones get their way everybody is fair game to paraphrase Martin Niemoeller.
Obama is certainly no Niemoeller.
“Remind me again why Obama couldn’t have let loose a few bombs on ISIS when it was amassing, about to attack, and vulnerable”
Most likely for the same reason Clinton didn’t go after Osama way back when – it wouldn’t make him look good.
Neither Clinton nor Obama are “statesmen.” To further invoke Godwin’s Law I’ll say neither one is a Churchill (not that anyone besides Obama and his followers would think so), nor are either Clinton or Obama like Chamberlain – no, to fully invoke Godwin’s law, I’ll say both are like the rumored coward that turned in Anne Frank and her family – just throwing someone else under the bus to save his own skin – even if that act is letting others be killed.
Charles:
Obama, aka Emir Hussein al-Hawaii, is not worried about looking good. He is also not worried about saving his own skin. He is a seeing Samson in our American temple, committed to pulling it down. He thinks he will escape unscathed.
The alternative (never mind old Godwin; he is from another, softer time) is that Hussein is the new Adolf and we are in 1935. Did you see any of the House Oversight Committee hearing on Cspan tonight? The Dems are united in their fascism.
Eric:
The comment seems to have gotten a “get out of jail free” card, because it suddenly got itself out of moderation.
I have no idea what that was about. The spam filter has a mind of its own.
Why Maliki ever thought that Barry would bomb his own soi disant allies (ISIS/ ISIL) passes strange.
Maliki HAD to know that Barry was, de facto, supplying the Sunni factions via Benghazigate.
He HAD to know that ISIS/ ISIL were seeded by the Qataris, and other Wahhabist fanatics. (KSA anyone?)
This is what “leading from out of your depth” looks like.
Barry HAD to vote “present.”
‘Tis obvious, no?
Barry not only does not want to pick a side… he doesn’t want to pick a decision.
Get it?
This is the insufferable lightness of indecision.
In geopolitical terms, Barry has mucked his hand.
(Things are naturally getting sticky.)
%%%
Don Carlos:
This is what onanism in foreign policy looks (and feels) like.
Barry pulled out, (pre-maturely) lest a legacy be left to Bush 43.
An infertile brow hast he! (Barry)
&&&
National solipsism extracts its bloody rents.
$$$
Lacking an air force and unit cohesion, the Iraqi Army is a nullity.
It’s being entirely recrafted as we post — along ethnic lines.
***
And in other news: the ISIL zone of occupation (in Iraq) has no electric power.
( It does control the hydro-electric system of Syria. )
Everyone is advised to get a bucket and head to the rivers.
Should anyone (Assad?) knock out the transmission system along the Euphrates, ISIS/ ISIL would go dark.
“Ymarsakar Says:
June 23rd, 2014 at 7:50 pm
Amis have gotten tired of power and winning. Now they will feel what defeat means.”
What you said. I’m afraid that most Americans are too complacent. Now that our population is 95% urban, most Amis believe that food grows in grocery stores.
I wonder what the future awaits with a traitor in the White House.
Amis?
“Amis” is the German word for Americans.
Obama, in love with the beauty of the call to prayer, imagines himself under the sway of dreams of my father, as the Caliph holding absolute power and avenging the suppression of the one true faith by the evil West. Thus NASA has a primary obligation to promote the wonders of islam’s stolen contributions to modern science.
Well, folks, when will things “go pear-shaped” here?
“Well, folks, when will things, “go pear-shaped” here?
We went pear shaped decades ago. I’m always fully loaded.
Remind me again, which ones are the ‘freedom fighters’? I can never tell!
“Remind me again why Obama couldn’t have let loose a few bombs on ISIS when it was amassing, about to attack, and vulnerable? He was warned.”
Obama welcomes these events. Bombs? Only if he needs to for appearance’s sake.
Obama wants the world in flames. While it burns, he is 100% focused on “fundamentally transforming”, i.e.e destroying, the United States of America.
For the millionth time: When one assumes that Obama hates the country he is President of, and seeks to destroy it, everything makes sense. When you assume otherwise, then there are gaping looks of incredulity and endless questions of “why, why, why”.
We know why. The question is answered. The only left is to stop him.
Mike: You are so right.
When one assumes that Obama hates the country he is President of, and seeks to destroy it, everything makes sense
Yup. At this point, either the president is an absolute, abject moron, always doing the opposite of what makes logical sense (which I don’t believe), or your point is true.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
ISIS is not a real threat. Only Republicans are a real threat.
At the very least Obama has shown his decision making process has a decidedly anti-success tilt. Given this why hasn’t anyone of either party said that it is long past the time when he needs to be removed?
This is the first time, since Buchanan that a President could be labeled correctly as treasonous. Yet almost all are silent about impeachment, something Obama has earned more than Andrew Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton put together.
Mike:
I have certainly heard your point, many times, and I don’t mean just from you.
I get it.
However, although I think it might be true, it’s not my leading theory of what motivates Obama. Obama definitely wants to “fundamentally change” America into a leftist country and a country that’s much much weaker on the international stage, but I don’t think Obama wanted Iraq to disintegrate (to “burn”) quite this early, if only because it looks bad for him. I think he wants certain groups (Iran, for example) to get more influence, which is certainly a pernicious enough desire, but the rise of ISIS does not lead to that effect.
I Callahan:
See my comment right above this one.
I have no problem believing Obama is both knave and fool. Sometimes knave predominates and his plans go the way he wants. Sometimes fool is more in the ascendance and things go differently than he plans or wants. I don’t know why that combination would be hard to fathom. And that combination can account for most of what he does. Nothing “impossible” about it. It doesn’t have to be all one or all the other.
@neo – Yes of course. But we on the right need a change of course here, in my opinion.
Long gone is the need to uderstand the man. He is understood. Loud and clear as even he might say.
Who was the guy who said “Let’s roll” again?
That is exactly where we are. AL Queda itself could truly not have done more damage to America. Not even close. Obama has hijacked our airplane. He is pointing its nose to the ground. That is known!
What are we going to do about it is the only question even worth considering at this point.
The only other possible question after that is what we will do when we are marched off to the gulag. That is next. Bank on it. If we don’t solve the first question, the 2nd will follow as day follows night.
I think Valerie is the one worrying about PR. One time during the campaign trail, Hussein over there wanted to skip the Medal of Honor banquet and various Leftist fund raisers. Why? Cause he was bored and wanted to play golf. Valerie convinced him, for the goal of winning, to attend Leftist fund raisers, at least.
So as for Hussein worrying about his image, the Michelles and the Obamas are too lazy to do that type of worrying.
It does make a difference if people believe in incompetence or happenstance luck or stupidity, for Hussein’s treason light actions.
It means they will have an excuse when it comes time to pull the trigger. When people aren’t on Death’s Ground, they usually run the heck away. And there’s few places in the US left to run for, the ones that did already left the continent.