GOP Blasts Obama: Iraq Turmoil "Was Avoidable"

by JASmius

A statement of the blindingly obvious, but to those who reside in the "Obama is in over his head" camp, stating the obvious at a full-throated roar oftentimes proves necessary:

Republicans slammed President Barack Obama Thursday over the swift upheaval in Iraq, charging that his decision to withdraw troops in late 2011 had enabled violent Islamic militants to seize two cities in a move to establish their own state in Iraq and Syria.

"It was something that was avoidable," Senator Jim Inhofe told Newsmax in an interview. The Oklahoma senator was among several member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to blast Obama for the insurgence of Sunni fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

"....and Syria," hm?  Would that happen to include the "rebels" in Syria that the Obama Regime has been so very interested in aiding?  Just trying to establish the full picture, folks.

The group beat back government forces in Mosul and Tikrit and was within 60 miles of Baghdad late Thursday.

"It was something that we warned the president about over a three-year period," Inhofe said, referencing letters Republicans sent to Obama in 2009, 2010, and last year. "Now, it's worse than it was before. It's very depressing."

It was also inevitable.  You could "warn the president" until your jaw unhinged, Senator, and he was never going to listen.  He wanted American power out of Iraq, out of the Middle East, because he believes that that power is the cause of all that region's, and the entire world's, problems.  And, of course, power abhors a vacuum.  Now that the folly of that mindset is being bloodily demonstrated, it's all George W. Bush's fault, as O will be happy to tell you all about on the ninth tee.  Indeed, it is profoundly depressing.

But how much more so for those of us in the "Obama is a revolutionary" camp, who have no doubt that the establishment of the "Islamic State of Iraq & Syria" is precisely the result Barack Obama sought.  And all the American soldiers killed, wounded, and maimed for the sake of Iraqi freedom - which was the original name of the operation, don't forget - all their time, effort, and sacrifices have now been for absolutely nothing.  Their commander-in-chief has seen to that.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, who also sits on the panel, said Obama has to make changes in his foreign policy team. "The first thing is to get rid of this national security team, which has been a total failure," Politico reports. "It’s a colossal failure of American security policy."

No, no, no, Maverick, the Obama national security team has been an unqualified success - in what they were trying to accomplish.  And what they were trying to accomplish was not the preservation of Iraqi freedom.  But even if it was, how would replacing one band of idiots with another be of any assistance?  It's the revolutionary-in-chief that needs to be gotten rid of, and the last chance of that was lost a year and a half ago.

Fortunately - or unfortunately, depending on the context - Senator McCain's mini-me provided a decidedly sinus-clearing warning of what's coming next:

Another committee member, Senator Lindsey Graham warned that the U.S. needed to get all embassy staff out of Iraq for fear of a repeat of the 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, including two former Navy SEALS.

"We’ve got another Benghazi in the making here," the South Carolina senator told Politico after a classified briefing committee members received from the White House. "What I heard in there scared the hell out of me." [emphasis added]

Like one Benghazi wasn't enough.  At least in Vietnam the helicopters with the last remaining American diplomatic personnel were able to get off and away from the Saigon embassy roof.  The One creates every appearance of being content to allow their 2014 Baghdad Green Zone counterparts to be butchered without lifting so much as a finger to help them.

The butchers, on the other hand, will do so with generous Obamunist assistance:

Since Tuesday, ISIS militants have seized Mosul and Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and other towns and cities north of Baghdad. The Iraqi army evaporated before the onslaught, abandoning bases and weapons that were provided by the U.S. [emphasis added]

The generous Obamunist assistance isn't just in bases and weapons, either:

The radical Islamist group known as ISIS —  the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria —  has looted nearly a half-billion dollars from banks in Mosul, Iraq, a cash grab that now makes it the richest terror group in the world, reports said.

The International Business Times reported the $429 million steal —  including a suspected large cache of gold bullion —  was confirmed by the regional governor, Atheel al-Nujaifi, and followed the siege of the country's second largest city.

The looted funds make ISIS richer than al-Qaida and as rich as the small nations of Tonga, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and the Falkland Islands, the IBTimes reported....

ISIS's money will "buy a whole lot of Jihad," regional analyst Brown Moses wrote on his Twitter feed. "For example, with $425 million, ISIS could pay 60,000 fighters around $600 a month for a year."

Time to put up another "Mission Accomplished!" banner in the Oval Office, and declare Harry (G)Reid - who once declared, eight years ago, that the war in Iraq was "lost" - a prophet.  Because he's helped see to that result as well.

But since the general public perception is still, after all that's happened, that Barack Obama is an American president, the White House felt it was necessary to issue a statement on the latest crisis of its own making:

President Obama, who announced in October 2011 that all U.S. troops would leave Iraq, said on Thursday that the administration would need to help Baghdad to counter the escalating violence.

He was not more specific, however.

"We do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria for that matter," he said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders have repeatedly asked the White House for additional support in the past year because of the rising jihadist violence, but the administration has taken no action.

Wow, he actually used the term "jihadist".  Isn't that awfully....Islamophobic, Barry?

Of course, he wasn't specific, because he has no more intention of actually doing anything to try and stop ISIS's march towards Baghdad and victory - i.e. send American forces back into Iraq and "re-start the war" - than he has over the past year of "rising jihadist violence".  He's just doing what comes naturally to him - pumping the air full of useless, empty, mendatious words that he and his acolytes believe will lower the seas, calm the tempests, and save the world, but which are the fodder for hysterical laughter to everybody else.

You know what else was "avoidable"?  Barack Hussein Obama himself.  Soon-to-be re-enslaved Iraqis and another soon-to-be-sacked American embassy are simply the latest victims of sixty-two million American voters' criminal negligence.