Obama’s foreign policy was error after error

[sear]

" surely the deaths of over 4000 US and 400 UK military deserved better than just running away. " M #19

a) Killing off another 4K there wouldn't necessarily be an improvement.

b) "Obama held all the cards" is a lie.
It was the Bush administration that failed to negotiate a replacement Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).
Without that, U.S. troops would have been vulnerable to a vast array of detriment from Iraq.

So the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq may have happened during the Obama administration.

BUT !!

It happened under terms determined during the Bush administration.

"American people are friends of Liberty everywhere, but custodians only of their own." John Adams

 

[anatta]

I can't find the stalled tank Column I saw on Long War Journal ( initial ISIS invasion) -but here is ISIS moving US tanks and Humvees to Syria

and here are Iraqi helmets left from fleeing Iraq troops.

The Iraqis were demoralized by a bunch of ISIS in pick up trucks!! -here outside Ramadi

 

[cancel2 2022]

did you see the Iraqi's ( even tank columns) flee in battle from ISIS?
Maliki destroyed his own army with the Sunni purge.
Yes they (war dead) deserved better - but Maliki was willing to throw it all away.

Where I have major problems with Obama is his not hitting ISIS when it was in convoys crossing open Iraqi desert.
But I'm not going to blame him ( solely) for the lack of a SOFA extension

So who do blame then? He is/was the commander-in-chief!

Sent from my Lenovo K52e78 using Tapatalk

 

[anatta]

So who do blame then? He is/was the commander-in-chief!
Sent from my Lenovo K52e78 using Tapatalk

Best I got the Blame Game down is to:

1. Maliki and his religious/political powerbase. The Iranian mullahs behind Sadr -and the Badr Brigards types ( Shi'a militia)
for the disinteration of the Iraqi Army. US trainers couldn't have saved that hot mess.
They still run the Iraqi army -which controls Iraq

2.Obama for his JV dismissal and being completely missing in action while ISIS rolled across Iraqi towns.

 

[Celticguy]

Obama’s foreign policy was error after error

I'd be more impressed by this topic if it were posted in conjunction with the DECISION.

Waiting 4 years, finding something to criticize, and then dumping on it is an impressive demonstration of 20:20 hindsight.

Presidents of the United States of America get the difficult decisions.

It's fine and dandy to criticize years after the fact.

It is the Siren anthem of the hopelessly naïve.

Only WaPo has waited years. The rest of us have been shaking our heads for years.

 

[sear]

"Only WaPo has waited years. The rest of us have been shaking our heads for years." Cg

Understood.

However, to state what is obvious to me, but apparently is not obvious to some others:

to criticize it is to imply there was a better option.

But the reality is:
had your alternative (if anyone dare post one) been executed faithfully to your description, we have no proof, no evidence it wouldn't have landed us in a worse situation than we're in now. Potentially much worse.

Candidly, things aren't going all that well in the Middle East.

Are they as bad today as they were when Obama was inaugurated?

The U.S. and the world were in fairly good shape when Bush was inaugurated.

8 years later it was a smoldering crater.

We had two separate Wars in the Middle East,
losing a reported 800K private sector jobs per month
Bush / Cheney / Paulson's $700 $Billion $TARP barely put a scratch on the Bush recession.

President Obama has been putting out Bush fires for 8 years now.

So Bush took a good situation, and made it horrible.
Obama took that horrible situation, and has gradually been making it better and better.

 

[Celticguy]

If you believe things are better and not far worse I'm afraid you are ignoring quite a lot.
Bush cleaned up Clintin's dot Com bust, corporate malfeasance and 911 and turned the economy around immediately. Dem led forced "easing" of credit qualification imploded financial markets.
It's difficult staying ahead of leftist disasters.

 

[sear]

"If you believe things are better and not far worse I'm afraid you are ignoring quite a lot." Cg

I'm not omniscient. So I can't have considered all the factors.

But I'm a scientist by training and temperament.

It wouldn't occur to me to just make a butterfly and daisy boink-wit assessment based upon squat.

I use quantifications.
- Bush was losing a reported 800,000 private sector jobs per month.
- during the 8 years of President Bush (younger) there were 2.1 million net jobs created in the United States. Of the 2.1 million, 1.8 million of them were in the public sector ... that means there were 300,000 jobs in the private sector in ... 8 years ...

- Obama gets close to 300K in one month.

If you don't care about domestic economics, perhaps foreign wars are more your preference.
That's fine.
Bush started two, on on complete fiction. Bush started two wars, and finished zero.
Obama's doing better than that; and the proof is again, verified by counting corpses.

To my knowledge Obama has not lied us into War the way Bush did.

"If you believe things are better and not far worse I'm afraid you are ignoring quite a lot." Cg

So give me YOUR quantifications.

"Bush cleaned up Clintin's dot Com bust, corporate malfeasance and 911 and turned the economy around immediately. Dem led forced "easing" of credit qualification imploded financial markets."

With what specific policy and executive branch action?
Scientists think they have a vaccine for Ebola Zaire, developed during the Obama administration. Are you going to credit Obama for it? What did Obama have to do with it?
So please educate us. What specific action do you allege the younger President Bush took to clean "up Clintin's dot Com bust"?

"It's difficult staying ahead of leftist disasters."

It's even more difficult, and more expensive cleaning up after the Republican disasters. We'll be paying a heavy price for the foolish U.S. military invasion and occupation of Iraq for decades if not generations.