When Barack Obama become President, Iraq – albeit at great cost to the USA – was a success. A mass-murdering dictator had been removed, the country had held free, democratic elections, and terrorism in that country was as close to being defeated as it ever can be. Things were so far in the right direction that then-President Bush was comfortable in negotiating a withdrawal of our combat troops from the country, to be completed in 2011.
Now, after 5 1/2 years of the Obama presidency, Iraq is a disaster bordering on complete collapse.
While taking full credit for the troop withdrawal that President Bush negotiated, Mr. Obama was either incapable of, or not interested in – maybe both – making sure that a residual force of US soldiers remained, to keep the Iraqi army trained and to deter the country falling backwards.
The result? “ISIS”, an al-qaeda offshoot, has taken over much of the country, with its sights directly zeroed in on Baghdad. Iran, arguably the world\’s foremost purveyor of terrorism, has stepped into the void created by Mr. Obama\’s inability to get cooperation from a government which literally owes its existence to us, which may well result in terrorist Iran being more influential to Iraq than we are. A strong argument can be made that this already has happened.
With that in mind, here is the first paragraph of today\’s lead editorial in the New York Times:
PresidentObama has, so far, struck the right note on Iraq, where Sunniextremist militants areseizing territory and threatening the existence of the state. Hehas been cautious – emphasizing the need for political reform inIraq and reaching out to other countries that could have an impact onits fate.
Yes, that is how the New York Times\’ editorial board frames President Obama\’s performance in Iraq:
-ISIS is not a terrorist group, it is a bunch of Sunni extremists,
-President Obama has not been weak and feckless, he has been cautious,
-and the fact that we now have to deal with terrorist Iran coming in and doing, for its purposes, what we should have done for ours, is “reaching out”.
You can read the entire Times piece by clicking here. But I doubt that you need anything more than the above to understand why I call it an idiotorial.
