One out of two isn't bad, I guess. The question is, did the ex-SecDef argue for these options when he was still running the Obamagon or Langley, when they still were options?:
Former Defense [Commissar] Leon Panetta told CBS News that some U.S. troops should have remained in Iraq after his boss, President Barack Obama, declared the war over in 2011, and that Obama should have armed and trained Syria's rebels in their uprising against President Bashar Assad.
"I really thought that it was important for us to maintain a presence in Iraq," Panetta, who served as defense commissar and director of central intelligence under Obama, told CBS News reporter Scott Pelley in a segment that aired on Friday night.
Yes and no. Yes, U.S. troops should have remained in Iraq, and for the same reasons that we still have U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, for example: They're a sign of our commitment to allies and a deterrent against renewed hostilities. One can easily predict what would have happened if we had precipitously withdrawn from Western Europe after World War II, or South Korea after the Korean War: The Soviets would have taken the rest of Europe, and that big, black hole as seen from space would have been the entire Korean peninsula, and might have even included Japan as well. You simply do not spent large quantities of blood and treasure winning a war - or, in the case of Korea, not losing one - and then throw away everything you've won and/or preserved. Which is precisely what Barack Obama knowingly did with Iraq.
No, we should not have armed and trained Syria's "rebels," because there never were any Syrian "rebels" that were not jihadists or at least jihadist sympathizers. And even if there had been, remember the analogy of the chicken being involved with breakfast but the pig being committed to it. Non-jihadists might be involved with a "rebellion," but jihadists are committed to it. Besides which, and please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Iraqi army - you know, the bunch that abandoned all their U.S.-supplied weaponry and fled in terror (those that weren't captured and summarily executed en masse) at first contact with Islamic State forces - armed and trained by the U.S.? What good did that arming and training do them? Would the "Free Syria Army" have done, or do, any better against ISIS now?
This, of course, glosses over the fact that Obama was arming the Syrian "rebels" - i.e. ISIS - clandestinely through....Libya, and specifically Benghazi. Which makes me surprised that Panetta is treading even that close to that particular topic.
So why is Leon Panetta publicly second-guessing O's pell-mell retreat now when he never did before? And he isn't the only one:
Panetta joins a growing list of former high-ranking Obama administration officials, including [Commissar] of State Hillary Clinton and [Commissar] of Defense Robert Gates, who have criticized the president's handling of his foreign policy and national security strategy in the Middle East.
To coin a phrase, "the bloom is off the rose". "That cherry has been popped". Until the rise of the Islamic State and its blitzkrieg across Mesopotamia, the inevitable disaster of Barack Obama's Ameriphobic, pro-jihadist foreign policy and national security strategy in the Middle East had not fully, visibly, and publicly manifested itself beyond the ability of the American media to circle the wagons and embargo or contain. Now it has, and even assuming that "former high-ranking Obama Regime officials" did have issues with their then-boss's foreign policy at the time - which I consider to be self-serving mendacity - the coast is perceived to be clear to let them, and him, have it now, when they're no longer directly beholden to him and it's in their political interests to distance themselves from the bloody, viscera-besotted wreckage.
Of course, none of them - or us - are beyond the reach, the long arm, of O's retribution, as Mrs. Clinton is finding out firsthand. I would be a lot more circumspect if I were Gates, Panetta, and that "growing list" of "ingrates".
It seems like the only parties who understand what's really going on in "the Levant" these days are myself (of course), Barack Obama, the Islamic State, and now....Charles Krauthammer:
What was the Islamic State thinking? We know it is sophisticated in its use of modern media. But what was the logic of propagating to the world videos of its beheadings of two Americans (and subsequently a Briton) — sure to inflame public opinion?
There are two possible explanations. One is that these terrorists are more depraved and less savvy than we think. They so glory in blood that they could not resist making an international spectacle of their savagery and did not quite fathom how such a brazen, contemptuous slaughter of Americans would radically alter public opinion and risk bringing down upon them the furies of the U.S. Air Force.
The second theory is that they were fully aware of the inevitable consequence of their broadcast beheadings — and they intended the outcome. It was an easily sprung trap to provoke America into entering the Mesopotamian war.
Why?
Because they're sure we will lose. Not immediately and not militarily. They know we always win the battles but they are convinced that, as war drags on, we lose heart and go home.
They count on Barack Obama quitting the Iraq/Syria campaign just as he quit Iraq and Libya in 2011 and is in the process of leaving Afghanistan now. And this goes beyond Obama. They see a post-9/11 pattern: America experiences shock and outrage and demands action. Then, seeing no quick resolution, it tires and seeks out leaders who will order the retreat. In Obama, they found the quintessential such leader.
....and are striking while they believe the proverbial iron is hot. Apparently even Mr. al-Baghdadi doesn't realize that Red Barry is president-for-life.
But as Dr. K goes on to insightfully opine, we're just a pawn in ISIS's other war: against the other jihadist factions. Remember when Mr. al-Baghdadi crowned himself "caliph," and other jihadists like the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri took great issue with his preemptive presumptuousness? The former pretty much got the drop on the latter with his blood-soaked, lightning advances across Syria and Iraq this spring and summer, is the clear "strong horse" in the Muslim world right now, and al-Baghdadi's rivals are having to scramble to catch up, which helps explain al Qaeda's new India branch, such as it is. But a growing tide of jihadist groups, including a great many al Qaeda affiliates, are defecting to the ISIS banner, and al-Baghdadi is looking to clinch his gains and entrench his caliphate. What better way to do that than to provoke and win another civilizational clash with the "Great Satan"? And what better way to do that than to not just defeat us "over there," but devastate us "over here" with one or more 9/11-dwarfing terrorist attacks on American soil? After all, isn't that how "al Qaeda" became a household name?
In short, in the jihadist's minds, they have already defeated us, and can walk in and take over the West whenever they like. They have already moved on to the intramural conflicts that will ultimately determine the power structure and pecking order of the Global Caliphate. But the "clash of civilizations"? That's all over, Islam has triumphed, and Judeo-Christianity is already dead - largely by its own hand, and the jihadists happy to decapitate the remaining helpless remnant.
Thus, as a practical matter, and since they can slaughter us with impunity, we will have not one jihadist organization blowing up our cities and infrastructure, but ALL of them competing to be the ones who destroy the most. And that doesn't even take into account Iran and its nukes and ICBMs.
And/or North Korea's. And/or Russia's. And/or Red China's.
Care to take bets on who's going to strike first and where? I don't know about y'all, but the suspense is killing me.
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