... while the war in Syria raged and saw violence increase dramatically in 2012, record-low levels of violence persisted during that very same year in Iraq and even a few months in 2013. Thus, it is impossible to say that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq was tied in any significant way to the rise of ISIS in Syria.
5.) Violence Only Increased Significantly In Response to Maliki’s Terrible Sectarian, Oppressive Policies, Not the U.S. Withdrawal
Jim Watson- AFP
If violence did not spike up dramatically after the U.S. left Iraq, but only did so more than a year after the U.S. had pulled out, it logically follows ...
... allies in the “apostate” Shiite regimes there. The two big culminations of these efforts in Iraq were in 2006, when Iraq nearly erupted into full-scale civil war, and in 2014, when ISIS nearly marched on Baghdad after taking much of the country from Maliki’s sectarian Shiite regime. Now, for the past few years, the big magnet for idealistic Muslims willing to use violence ... ... though secular in ideology (Ba'athist), it is headed by Arab Alawite (a sect of Shiite Islam that is a small minority in Syria) Bashar al-Assad and is controlled mainly by Alawate Shiites. It is backed by Shiite Persian Iranians and the Arab Shiite ...
... them immunity. Nothing to complain about here, and I agree that a residual force would have been better but that is 100% on Maliki not granting immunity and having already committed to his Iranian allies that he would see our troops out in 2011. We will come to ISIS (and Obama’s mild military reengagement in Iraq) and Syria as separate issues.
Israeli/Palestinian Peace
Here, one may be tempted to make more of the efforts of the Obama Administration ...
How the Obama Administration Removed Iraq’s Largest Political Obstacle
Originally published Nov.... ... presidency, he and his Administration realized that Nuri Kamal al-Maliki was part of the problem, not part of the solution. It did ... ... extremists, especially in Iraq’s western Anbar province on Syria’s border, saw the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq/Mesopotamia ... ... first the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/the Levant/al-Sham (ISIS or ISIL) and now just Islamic State (IS) might possibly have ...
