... an agreement made with Iraq by the Bush Administration, 2.) since the Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, refused to give American forces immunity if they stayed behind, the same reason that the Bush Administration did not accept the terms for a longer agreement, and 3.) the American people themselves decided to withdraw from Iraq in voting for Barack Obama in 2008 over John McCain). Below are the top five reasons why the idea that the American withdrawal from Iraq is the main ...
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As far as who learns from history, for now, the U.S. has a president in office now who campaigned on the fact that invading Iraq in 2003 was a colossal mistake, who, keeping this in mind, intervened only lightly in Libya and went out of his way to avoid ... ... 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 ...
... chose not to agree to allow a U.S. residual non-combat force to stay and train/support Iraqi forces when Maliki would not grant 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 than they actually represent, but at the same time we should not minimize them.
To be sure, Obama has ...
... personality and beliefs clearly not inclined for military adventurism of the type for which George W. Bush, neocons, and Republicans are quite enthusiastic, with Iraq, Obama clearly and unequivocally wanted to play no direct role. He was elected to get out of Iraq, and that is what he did, Maliki’s pleas be damned. Obama had no ear or appetite for any Iraqi intervention.
The same had been the case for Syria, but the chemical attacks in the summer of 2013 had awoken Obama to the ugly reality of the Syrian Civil War: the region was so divided in who supported who,...
