Obama Lost Iraq

As we debate the Iranian deal, a secondary point that needs to be made by Republicans running for the president is how Obama lost Iraq. This is a point I have made before and is worth repeating since the two are connected; Obama’s foreign policy team designed a policy that resulted in Iraq essentially being split into ISIS land and an Iranian fiefdom. While Megyn Kelly has made it a point to ask Jeb Bush about supporting his brother’s war, the real issue is Obama’s handling of Iraq after he took office.

In 2009, Iraq was stabilized and even Obama's team acknowledge that; they even took credit for it. When the troops left, Biden was declaring this one of the Obama Administration's greatest accomplishments. (I will give the Obama Administration credit for hubris since the policy that led to this was actually done by the Bush Administration and the Bush surge was opposed by many leading Democrats including Obama, Biden, and Clinton.) What happened was predicated by many including Iraq descending into chaos, and while some would argue that allowing Saddam to fall relinquished a buffer to Iran, the reality is that an Iraq supported by the United States was the buffer to Iran, not Saddam’s led Iraq.

Before World War II, the French designed a series of alliances at Germany southeast and eastern borders with Poland and Czechoslovakia. These countries provided the French an alliance equal to a major power that the Germans couldn’t ignore. In 1938, Germany was surrounded by a French alliance and even the Soviet Empire was party to this alliance in an informal way. (There were not set treaties between Soviet Union and Western alliances but Soviets were suspicious of Germany’s intent. Stalin understood Hitler threat to his own design for Europe.)

After France and Great Britain surrender the Sudetenland, the French alliance collapsed as Hungry and Romania switched side to make a deal with Germany and Soviets made their own deal as well. This isolated Poland and left France and Britain alone to face Germany.

In 2011, Iraqis took their own stock of the Obama’s withdrawal and the Iraqis' Shiites made their deal with Teheran and the Sunni’s found themselves either dealing with ISIS or becoming their victim. The Kurds were left alone and fighting for their survival in a hostile atmosphere and there is no telling what our friends in the region will eventually do other than develop their own nuclear weapons.

Obama and Clinton’s ignorance of historical record of appeasement to Iran was easily foretold and in this election; they must be held responsible for allowing the development of ISIS and the rise of Iran in Iraq. Here is my question to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, if Obama left 20,000 troops behind, would ISIS domination have been stopped in its track and Iranian-supported Shiites militia not have had the upper hand in half of Iraq and dominate the present government? I would love to see Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden answer that one!

As for history, the United States has in the past left residue troops level in key strategic areas including Europe since World War II and in Korea. These troops, combined with Korean and NATO troops, help deter enemies from invasion, and the United States' nuclear umbrella not only helped keep the peace but it helped with nuclear proliferation since Germany, Japan and South Korea did not need to develop their own nuclear capacity. Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia would work to obtain their own nuclear weapons since Obama has all but guaranteed Iran a nuclear weapon as well as the mechanism to develop them. And the present instability can be laid at the feet of Obama, Clinton, and Kerry.