Islamists capture Fallujah

[DGuller]

I didn't say we should flush more blood and money down the toilet! Leaving Iraq could have been done much better, to try for success rather than wring our hands while things fail. Just as some ideas, a US presence to train Iraqi troops and retain some influence in the country as an ally, would have gone a long way to help in the aftermath. And I'm sure the US leadership could have come up with good ideas. Rather than flush down toilet all we did in the first place. The US has many troops in many countries, still in the Balkans even.

Can't argue with you there.  We should've come up with good ideas, we should've done much better. 

[Ancient Demon]

Can't argue with you there.  We should've come up with good ideas, we should've done much better. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqkI691dxNg

[Viking]

War is murder.

War is to murder what organized sports is informal games.

[Razgovory]

Can't argue with you there.  We should've come up with good ideas, we should've done much better. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqkI691dxNg

It's not even that.  Hindsight ranks much higher then "we should have come up good ideas".

[jimmy olsen]

Can't argue with you there.  We should've come up with good ideas, we should've done much better. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqkI691dxNg

It's not even that.  Hindsight ranks much higher then "we should have come up good ideas".

How about, "don't disband the entire army."

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/11/why-iraq-is-in-turmoil/?hpt=wo_r1

08:00 AM ET
Why Iraq is in turmoil

Watch "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN

By Fareed Zakaria

Here's a startling statistic: more than 8,000 Iraqis were killed in violent attacks in 2013. That makes it the second most violent country in the world, after its neighbor Syria.

As violence has spread and militants have gained ground in several Middle Eastern countries, people have been wondering how much this has to do with the Obama administration and its lack of an active intervention in the region. The Wall Street Journal and a Commentary magazine opinion piece have both argued this past week that the Obama administration's decision to withdraw troops from Iraq is directly responsible for the renewed violence in that country. They and others have also argued that because it has stayed out of Syria, things there have spiraled downward.

Let me suggest that the single greatest burden for the violence and tensions across the Arab world lies with a president – though not President Obama – and it lies with an American foreign policy that was not too passive but rather too active and interventionist in the Middle East. The invasion and occupation of Iraq triggered what has become a regional religious war in the Middle East. Let me explain how, specifically.

From March through June of 2003, in the first months of the occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration made a series of catastrophic decisions. It authorized the disbanding of the Iraqi army and signed onto a policy of deBaathification, which meant that anyone in Iraq who had been a member of the top four levels of the Baath Party – the ruling party under Saddam Hussein – would be barred from holding any government job.

This meant that tens of thousands of bureaucrats and hundreds of thousands of soldiers – almost all Sunnis – were thrown out of work, angry, disposed, and armed. This in turn meant the collapse of the Iraqi state and of political order. But it also sparked the rise of a sectarian struggle that persists to this day.

More from CNN: Can Iraq ever escape cycle of violence?

The Bush administration went to war in Iraq to spread democracy. But in fact it spread sectarianism – displacing the Sunni elite who had long ruled the country and replacing it with hardline Shia religious parties that used their new found power to repress the Sunnis – just as they had been repressed.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been utterly unwilling to share power with the Sunnis – who comprise about 20 percent of Iraq – and that has driven them into opposition, extremism, and terrorism. During the surge the prime minister made several promises to change his ways and over the last few years has reneged on every one of them.

This sectarian power-struggle is the origins of the civil war that has been ongoing in Iraq for 11 years. It is the cancer that has spread beyond Iraq into other countries, from Syria to Lebanon.

The Bush administration seemed to have made the massive strategic error almost unthinkingly. There is for example a report that a few months before the invasion, President Bush met with three Iraqi exiles and appeared unaware that Iraq contained within it Sunnis and Shias. An Arab leader confirmed to me that in his meetings with the president, it was clear that Bush did not understand that there was a difference between the two sects. Others in the administration, better informed, were convinced that the Shia would be pluralists and democrats. Those of us who warned of these dangers at the time were dismissed as pessimists.

So if we're trying to understand why we see a Sunni-Shia battle unfolding across the Middle East, keep in mind that the primary cause is not that the Obama administration didn't intervene in Syria. It's because the Bush administration did in Iraq.

[CountDeMoney]

That article doesn't support the troops.

[11B4V]

So if we're trying to understand why we see a Sunni-Shia battle unfolding across the Middle East,

I dont see a problem here. Let them continue.

[jimmy olsen]

That article doesn't support the troops.

You're alive!

[Monoriu]

Seems a bit of a stretch to say that the current violence in Syria is caused by the Iraq invastion.

[Sheilbh]

I didn't say we should flush more blood and money down the toilet! Leaving Iraq could have been done much better, to try for success rather than wring our hands while things fail. Just as some ideas, a US presence to train Iraqi troops and retain some influence in the country as an ally, would have gone a long way to help in the aftermath. And I'm sure the US leadership could have come up with good ideas. Rather than flush down toilet all we did in the first place. The US has many troops in many countries, still in the Balkans even.

But the Iraqis didn't want you there. That's the key difference between Iraq and anywhere the US has troops. It took a lot of negotiations by the Bush administration to get an 18 month SOFA.

I said in 2008 there would be no difference between an Obama or a McCain administration on Iraq because they'd both have to live with the SOFA negotiated by Bush. There was no chance anyone would be able to convince Maliki to extend US involvement or be willing to accept the conditions he'd probably attach to it.

The failure of the occupation was in the first few years. After that I think it was doomed regardless. I mean by the time you left Iraq was experiencing as much violence as Pakistan (it's since crept up a little bit) and the government was the exact same Iranian influenced one that you're moaning about now. But short of re-occupying and deposing the government, what could the US do?

[Solmyr]

It was.  The "Iraq is now a mess and Iran gains from it", ship sailed long, long ago.  You know what Iraq needs?  Saddam Hussein.

It's true, which sucks.

We could just give Iraq to Assad.

[jimmy olsen]

It was.  The "Iraq is now a mess and Iran gains from it", ship sailed long, long ago.  You know what Iraq needs?  Saddam Hussein.

It's true, which sucks.

We could just give Iraq to Assad.

Give Iraq and Syria to Turkey.

[Solmyr]

Only if we can have the Osmanli back. Those turbans were bitchin.

[Tonitrus]

It was.  The "Iraq is now a mess and Iran gains from it", ship sailed long, long ago.  You know what Iraq needs?  Saddam Hussein.

It's true, which sucks.

We could just give Iraq to Assad.

Give Iraq and Syria to Turkey.

I doubt they'd want them, even if given for free.

[Admiral Yi]

Maybe we can dig up a Seleucid.