Military What was done is being undone...Iraq

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.”