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What was done is being undone...Iraq
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  1. It is too much work to edit your posts to try to quote them. If you are going to make point-by-point rebuttles, please learn the friggin' BB Codes.
  2. I tried but apparently I'm not computer literate enough to work it...on the 2nd try it apparently came about. Fire away my friend.

    Of course not but it was given the possibility of success by the defat of the Russians and was the first collaboration by different Muslim entities in hundreds of years..

    Fair statement I agree

    You use it as an excuse to absolve Obama of responsibility. I have not excused W's faults and see no reason to excuse BO's.

    An Egyptian army that doesn't trust Obama and as one of the articles I noted has shut him out in the recent negotiations working to end the Gaza mess. A Saudi government and most of the other moderate states that are doing the same. They don't trust Obama and believe he his working against their needs.

    I got a problem with BO's lack of competence & leadership

    Fantasy every day the Iranians produce more highly refined weapons grade uranium. All acknowledge they have all the tools to build a bomb. They and the Russians are playing us. The Russians are talking about selling them another reactor. Iran is getting loser to the bomb not slowing down while we diddle with talks

    Re think that Red...Assad used the time to rearm (with Russian weapons) and the tide of the civil war is flowing to Assad who is exacting revenge. AQ in Yemen was never more than a side show not a real threat.

    Yet the terrorist threat still is rising (see above abt ISIS) with western educated radicals are getting training that make then more dangerous than AQ. BTW Red the Taliban are native Afghanis who while fanatics and ruthless are really only interested in Afghanistan. They help OBL because he helped so much against the Russians. Their whole objective is to get us out and keep their country in the 9th century. They had no interest in projecting beyond their tribal borders. I wouldn't vote for them but they are NOT an external threat.

    That isn't what the president's advisors told him months ago. Yes they will be limited to an extent but watch what they do with the American and European born & raised fighters they are training.

    So Putin's recruiting Russians to fight in Ukraine, firing artillery from Russia into Ukraine apparently involved deeply in the downing of the Malaysian air flight. He has stated over and over again that his goal is to reinstate Russian hegemony over the old Soviet & Russian Imperial holdings. He has acted far more boldly than anyone expected and to assume he has been permanently checked is fantasy. BTW just because he fooled W is no excuse for Obama ...he was warned by the example. I will give Biden credit when asked by Putin what Joe saw in his eyes Biden said nothing you have no soul and Putin's reply? That's right you understand me. or words to that effect. Obama had no cause to be played by Putin except his own arrogance and incompetence.
    In your dreams as has so often been pointed out with facts you ignore.

    Nice try. Interesting how much criticism of the president comes from all sides and around the world yet you keep up the one note tune that it is only the Rs who hate him. That is a tired excuse Red without substance.

  3. This is a pretty way to look at it.

    Whether or not anyone believes it Iraq could have worked. It wasn't that far off actually. I have said this before but here it is again.

    1. We (W and the gang) should have never run off everyone from the iraqi army. We had allies there and we gave them no place to go with their knowledge, relationships and influence. That was a massive phuck up.

    2. Our inability to crush JAM, a small but extremely powerful bunch of nuts. This was an equally painful thorn in our side because they had infiltrated so deeply into every part of the rebuilding process. Gen Casey paid for a cease fire and quickly found out that you just can't trust a rag head.
    red55 likes this.
  4. Are you seriously trying to suggest that 1,400 years of Muslim fanaticism should have gone away because the Russians lost in Afghanistan? That is as off base as holding Obama responsible for 1,400 years of muslim fanaticism.

    I absolve Obama for things done before he was President. Just as I don't blame W for things done after he left.

    The Egyptian Army is the most pro-American force in the Arab World.

    I keep repeating the best interests of Saudi Arabia and Israel don't always coincide with our own best interests.

    Well this sure as hell ain't an example of it. Assad's Syria and Hezbollah are fighting ISIS and Iran and Qatar are paying for it. I can't think of a better scenario than Obama allowing them to proceed at no cost to and with the great benefit of forcing ISIS to battle on three fronts, something that will be very hard for them to sustain, they have already lost momentum against Syria and Baghdad.

    Actually it is not being processed to weapons grade, the inspections confirm this. They have produced 20% enriched uranium suitable for a nuclear reactor, not the 90% enriched uranium required for weapons.

    Every industrial country in the world has the technology. But it takes a shitload of money, a lot of time, and brings a world of condemnation and sanctions down on you. Look at what it has bought North Korea. Iran has noticed this.

    Nonsense. There is no evidence of this, you take counsel of your fears. The Russians are the last people that want Iran to have a bomb. Iran can;t hit us with any missile they possess. They actually could hit Russia. Our national intelligence community has stated flatly that Iran has ended its nuclear weapon design and weaponization work.

    It's still a stalemate over there. Meanwhile Syria is no threat to Israel. Nice side effect, eh?

    You are really off base here. AQAP is the biggest and most active cell of Al Qaeda remaining. They are the only one that has attempted to blow up American airliners since 9/11.

    I agree that the Taliban is no threat but they originated in Pakistan. Many of the Afghan tribes affiliated with the Taliban to fight the Great Satan will go back to fighting each other when we are gone. Likewise, ISIS has its hands full with a three-front war, poor logistics, international condemnation, zero support from Russia or China, and now trying to take on the US, at least rhetorically.

    Al Qaeda has been doing this for years but we have thwarted dozens of attempts. A couple of homemade kettle bombs on Boston has been the worst of it. It pissed us all off, but it didn;t really harm the country, did it? Hell, neither did 9/11. Bin Ladin believed that if he destroyed the World Trade center, the US economy would collapse. Not been close. Yes it is possible that that might slip somebody through to cause havoc here, but they are no threat to our existence. That threat is still with Russia.

    Has he invaded Ukraine? No. Are the Ukrainians winning over the insurrectionists? Yep. Is Putin going to war with NATO over Ukraine? No. Your fears rule you.

    The President of the United States get criticism from all sides no matter who is in office. No, he isn't as popular as Clinton, but his international popularity blows away Bush's. We are in no position to please everybody and we should not even try. But Obama has worked consistently in the best interests of the United States of America. Republicans criticize him for doing exactly what they advocate doing themselves.[
  5. Pretty much. An even better way to have handled it would have been to let Saddam keep a lid on Iraq and be a counterweight to Iran. He was contained, his army had been decimated, his WMD's had been destroyed by ten years of UNSCOM inspectors. He was immensely unpopular. We should have fomented internal unrest and allowed a revolution to happen. We would have ended up with another strongman, but he would probably have been a secular strongman and possibly a less-insane and more practical one than Saddam. Would have saved us $2 Trillion and 50,000 casualties.

    Incidentally, this is still the best way to handle Iran. They have tremendous internal differences, economic problems, and local enemies. Another revolution there is just a matter of time. If we don't attack them and make them all pull together, they will eventually pull themselves apart. We should be supporting secular moderates within Iran to make sure they come out on top when the time is right.
    Winston1 likes this.
  6. In so many ways that is true Red. The Turks did it before WW1 for 400 years (and they were Muslim). However the longer a population is held down the worse the resultant explosion is when the oppression ends. Yes many of the individuals in these countries want to and can live in a modern secular state, but too many are still held in the tribal & religious thrall of extremism and anger about being suppressed. That combination in Iraq was fatally attractive to W as it was in Iran when the Shah was booted.

    BTW your prescription for Iran fits all of the ME. It will be a long haul and we can't be too invested in any change being a final answer. A couple of things make that hard to do. The first is the oil wealth and its importance to the world, the second Israel and the third that area's historic strategic importance as a connector between east and west as well as north & south.
    red55 likes this.
  7. I don't know about a revolution, I mean, that is sort of what we ended up with anyway. The shia had been shit on for so long they finally just went buck wild. Hard to keep a lid on that.
  8. There probably will be a revolution of some sorts in Iran sooner or later. Unlike some of the other Muslim countries many young Iranians want to live in a freer and more modern culture. Many of them already wear western clothing and listen to western music that in the past has been forbidden. A lot of them have been educated in Europe and the USA. Lets just hope that when it happens their side is numerous enough and powerful enough to come out the winner
  9. That's why I call it a Civil War. The country is likely going to end up partitioned. The borders were arbitrarily established by the British anyway and don't conform to tribal and ethnic realities. The Kurds are already on their way to independence. They have established a oil revenue, they are actively rebuilding a society that is inclusive of minorities and pro-American. Hard to see the Shia southern majority and the Sunni Western majority seeing eye to eye anytime soon, whether ISIS controls the Sunni areas or the tribal chiefs do.
  10. Funny the president at least implies that the Iraq withdrawal was arranged and set under W's administration. Here is the quote from The Daily Beast

    “What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps coming up as if this was my decision,” he said. “Under the previous administration we had turned over the country to a sovereign, democratically elected Iraqi government.”
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