- Jun 6, 2007
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Last week Jeb Bush really layed into Hillary Clinton blaming her and President Obama for the deterioration of the security situation in Iraq after America's forces left in 2011 and the subsequent rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq taking over wide swaths of the Northern and Western part of country, claiming if only Obama and Clinton negotiated an arrangement where a residual force of like ten thousand U.S. Combat troops were left in Iraq none of these terrible developments would have occurred. This criticism isn't a new development initiated by Jeb this is a commonly heard assessment within the Republican Party one could say today it is the party line of the Republican Party. The really disturbing thing about this ciriticism is that it is absolutely wrong it is troubling because it indicates that Republicans are prepared to be partisan in their assessment of serious foreign affair matters it gives the American people good reason to question whether they can trust the Republican Party on Foreign Affairs.
This Republican view is totally wrong, the reason for the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq can be laid solely at the feet of Nouri al Maliki the former Prime Minister of Iraq. After the American forces left, Mr. Maliki began a campaign of discrimination against Sunni Iraqis it was only a matter of time before a Sunni militant group would rise up and take on Mr. Maliki's government and as it so happened it was the Islamic State that sprung-up and so they got the Sunni support although regretted! Mr. Maliki is representative of a large group of "Shiite" Iraqis of his generation that experienced brutal and harsh treatment at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his Sunni allies, they are embittered by what happened and cannot let it go and think the appropiate response to their history is to make Iraq a Shiite country where Iraqi Shiites hold all the power and control everything from A to Z and other Iraqi sects don't matter their all second class citizens campared to Shiite Iraqis plus Nouri al Maliki holds the character shortcoming that he is personally corrupt and supports having a government that is extremely corrupt especially when it comes to public monies.
Mr. Maliki's specific campaign against the Sunni's in part includes the following. The day after the last US troops left Iraq which was Dec. 18 2011, he had an arrest warrant issued for the Sunni Vice-President Tariq al Hashimi for running death squads and had him found guilty receiving a death sentence in abstentia. Mr. Maliki had one hundred plus Sunni Iraqis given death sentences and carried such out for violence during the Iraq civil war in many cases using confessions obtained by torture. Mr. Maliki had Sunni's purged from the government, five-hundred lost their job alone in the Intelligence Service Department. Mr. Maliki was unfair about using the principle of de-Baathification to block many Sunnis from the ballot and government jobs. He went into a Sunni led Finance ministry destroyed equipment, took papers and arrested staff. Mr. Maliki had Sunni officers removed from their jobs in the Iraqi Army en masse. Mr. Maliki took over the job of Minister of Defense and Interior and basically blocked Iraqi Sunnis from a role in handling security in the country.
Not only would have a military presence left in Iraq post 2011 not stopped Nouri al Maliki's political campaign against the Iraqi Sunni people but it also would not have materiallly stopped the Islamic States military expansion on the ground. Take for instance the Islamic States victory at Mosul, the Iraqi Army had military forces protecting Mosul they just collapsed when attacked by the Islamic State. If the American military leadership had ten thousand troops in Iraq like the Republicans contend the American military leadership would not have committed those troops to rescuing/retaking Mosul it would have been way too costly from a U.S. casualty standpoint, the American military leadership does not take on risky deployments like that this leadership would have counseled to the White House we need to hold off and build up an invasion force of over whelming size and then retake the city this leadership does not do risky deployments like that or the American people could see large number of U.S. troops killed and/or captured the American people would not accept such an outcome.
If Republicans want to criticize Ms. Clinton and President Obama on Iraq they can do it from this standpoint. The signs that Nouri al Maliki was embarking on an anti-Sunni campaign were many and big. Ms. Clinton and President Obama should have been pounding on the alarm saying publicly to Maliki cut it out or America won't sell you arms and will organize an oil embargo against you so your government won't have any money and will fall. For it should have been obvious to Mr. Clinton and President Obama that it was only a matter of time before Iraq explodes into a large scale Sunni vs. Shiite conflict. To do this Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama would have had to discard their public image that Iraq was a success under their watch; this is the shortcoming with Ms. Clinton she did this on the Iraq issue and the Libya issue not ordering the evacuation of the Benghazi embassy when she had notice the area had serious security issues Ms. Clinton is an establishment politician reputation takes priority over the country's interest at times; for old guard politicians like Ms. Clinton sometimes protecting and gaining political power trumps protecting the country's interests!
This Republican view is totally wrong, the reason for the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq can be laid solely at the feet of Nouri al Maliki the former Prime Minister of Iraq. After the American forces left, Mr. Maliki began a campaign of discrimination against Sunni Iraqis it was only a matter of time before a Sunni militant group would rise up and take on Mr. Maliki's government and as it so happened it was the Islamic State that sprung-up and so they got the Sunni support although regretted! Mr. Maliki is representative of a large group of "Shiite" Iraqis of his generation that experienced brutal and harsh treatment at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his Sunni allies, they are embittered by what happened and cannot let it go and think the appropiate response to their history is to make Iraq a Shiite country where Iraqi Shiites hold all the power and control everything from A to Z and other Iraqi sects don't matter their all second class citizens campared to Shiite Iraqis plus Nouri al Maliki holds the character shortcoming that he is personally corrupt and supports having a government that is extremely corrupt especially when it comes to public monies.
Mr. Maliki's specific campaign against the Sunni's in part includes the following. The day after the last US troops left Iraq which was Dec. 18 2011, he had an arrest warrant issued for the Sunni Vice-President Tariq al Hashimi for running death squads and had him found guilty receiving a death sentence in abstentia. Mr. Maliki had one hundred plus Sunni Iraqis given death sentences and carried such out for violence during the Iraq civil war in many cases using confessions obtained by torture. Mr. Maliki had Sunni's purged from the government, five-hundred lost their job alone in the Intelligence Service Department. Mr. Maliki was unfair about using the principle of de-Baathification to block many Sunnis from the ballot and government jobs. He went into a Sunni led Finance ministry destroyed equipment, took papers and arrested staff. Mr. Maliki had Sunni officers removed from their jobs in the Iraqi Army en masse. Mr. Maliki took over the job of Minister of Defense and Interior and basically blocked Iraqi Sunnis from a role in handling security in the country.
Not only would have a military presence left in Iraq post 2011 not stopped Nouri al Maliki's political campaign against the Iraqi Sunni people but it also would not have materiallly stopped the Islamic States military expansion on the ground. Take for instance the Islamic States victory at Mosul, the Iraqi Army had military forces protecting Mosul they just collapsed when attacked by the Islamic State. If the American military leadership had ten thousand troops in Iraq like the Republicans contend the American military leadership would not have committed those troops to rescuing/retaking Mosul it would have been way too costly from a U.S. casualty standpoint, the American military leadership does not take on risky deployments like that this leadership would have counseled to the White House we need to hold off and build up an invasion force of over whelming size and then retake the city this leadership does not do risky deployments like that or the American people could see large number of U.S. troops killed and/or captured the American people would not accept such an outcome.
If Republicans want to criticize Ms. Clinton and President Obama on Iraq they can do it from this standpoint. The signs that Nouri al Maliki was embarking on an anti-Sunni campaign were many and big. Ms. Clinton and President Obama should have been pounding on the alarm saying publicly to Maliki cut it out or America won't sell you arms and will organize an oil embargo against you so your government won't have any money and will fall. For it should have been obvious to Mr. Clinton and President Obama that it was only a matter of time before Iraq explodes into a large scale Sunni vs. Shiite conflict. To do this Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama would have had to discard their public image that Iraq was a success under their watch; this is the shortcoming with Ms. Clinton she did this on the Iraq issue and the Libya issue not ordering the evacuation of the Benghazi embassy when she had notice the area had serious security issues Ms. Clinton is an establishment politician reputation takes priority over the country's interest at times; for old guard politicians like Ms. Clinton sometimes protecting and gaining political power trumps protecting the country's interests!
