[DAILYMAIL.CO.UK] - The US has 35,000 troops stationed in the Middle East including 10,000 in Kuwait -- plus 10,000 troops, an F-16 detachment and a Patriot missile battery in Jordan
- President Obama completed his troop withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011, leaving the country in the hands of government security forces
- The White House said Tuesday that Hillary Clinton deserves credit for 'ending the war in Iraq, responsibly winding down the war in Afghanistan, and decimating and destroying core al-Qaeda'
- Three GOP senators warned that the Iraq mess is a preview of Afghanistan once the U.S. completes the Obama-led troop draw-down there
- The Islamic State of Iraq in Syria (ISIS), formerly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq Islamic State of Iraq, is capturing cities, seizing money and oil, and displacing hundreds of thousands of people
- America has provided the Iraqi government with copious military materiel but doesn't plan to respond to ISIS's advances with troops
- Instead, Washington has told Baghdad to 'step up to the plate' and help its people in ways that freeze out terror groups
The current turmoil in Iraq is a feature, not a bug, for the progressive Left in the U.S. (and Western Europe). This is what ANSWER and Code Pink, the World Can't Wait and the rest, all wanted. They wanted Iraq to fail after Saddam's fall.
Why? Because it reinforces, in their minds, their ideology and world-view. America is evil, and therefore anything -- anything! -- we do must fail. If we removed Saddam and helped Iraq to a (somewhat) democratic republic, that must fail. If we chased the Taliban out of Kabul and gave the Afghanis a chance to have a country, that must fail. If we support Israel, Israel must fail (not just fail but splatter).
And most of all -- America is successful, so America must fail.
The 'narrative' here is hard left, progressive and Orwellian. Their Hobbesian ideology can't win in a peaceful, prosperous country so that country must fail. Hence the Cloward–Piven strategy that clearly has been at work the past five years. Mr. Obama's foreign policy is but one part of this. Notice all the different parts of the world that are falling apart at about the same time -- from Iraq to Venezuela, from the South China Sea to Libya, we have major troubles. Notice how this complements the major domestic troubles of the collapse of our borders, the ruinous debt and the take-no-prisoners political approach of the Left.
I suggest that this is not an accident. The Obama administration was not blindsided by the recent collapse of the Iraqi army in the Sunni west of that country. They weren't blindsided by the weakness of the al-Maliki government.
They've known -- and approved.
The real centerpiece of the Obama/Clinton/Kerry mideast strategy is for the middle east to fail. When it does, so does America.
That's the point. |
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