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How Or Why Did Obama Lose The War In Iraq?

Michael Redbourn — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 13:31:37 +0000

Rice: Iraq withdrawal threatens US gains – The Hill's Video

thehill.com11/6/11

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Sunday that President Obama's plan to pull all U. S..

Obama's Tragic Iraq Withdrawal – Council on Foreign Relations

www.cfr.org10/31/11

Max Boot says the end of the U.S. military mission in Iraq is not a triumph but a defeat for the United States.

So Why did the US Lose In Iraq?

It must, in all fairness be said, that Barack Obama was critical of the Iraq war from its beginning.

But when he became president in January 2009, he was handed a war that had already been won!

The surge had succeeded!

The US Had It Won!

Al-Qaeda in Iraq had been routed, driven to a humiliating defeat by an Anbar Awakening of Sunnis fighting side-by-side with the infidel Americans!

And perhaps even more remarkably, the Shiite militias had been taken down, with U.S. backing, by the forces of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki!

The Sadr militias from Basra to Sadr City had been crushed!

So Obama Inherited A Very Simple Task

He simply needed to negotiate a new (SOFA) Status-of-forces agreement in order to reinforce the gains and to create a strategic partnership with the Arab world’s only democracy.

But he blew it, and negotiations, such as they were, finally collapsed in October 2011.

There is no longer an agreement, and no partnership, and as of Dec. 31, and the U.S. military presence in Iraq will to all intents and purposes be ended.

So How Did The Obama Administration Blow It?

The deadline didn’t suddenly sneak up on Obama because he had three years to prepare for it, and everyone involved, both Iraqi and American, knew that the 2008 SOFA which called for full U.S. withdrawal was meant to be renegotiated.

And all the major parties but one, the Sadr faction, had an interest in maintaining a residual stabilizing U.S. force, similar to the postwar deployments in Japan, Germany and Korea.

Joe Biden Was Handed The Negotiating Job

During the last three years, there were two abject and serious failures.

The First Major Failure Was Caused By

The administration’s inability, at the height of American post-surge power, to broker a centrist nationalist coalition governed by the major blocs.

Between

The predominantly Shiite (Maliki’s).

The predominantly Sunni (Ayad Allawi’s).

And the Kurds who won a large majority (69 percent) of the seats in the 2010 election.

Vice President Biden was given this relatively simple job, but even this was way beyond his limited capabilities.

(Why did Obama choose Biden as his vice president?).

The Iraqi government ended up effectively being run by a narrow sectarian coalition wherein the balance of power is held by a relatively small (12%) Iranian-client Sadr faction.

The Second Failure Was

Obama’s Status-Of-Forces Agreement!

U.S. commanders recommended approximately 20,000 troops, which would have been considerably fewer than our 28,500 in Korea, 40,000 in Japan and 54,000 in Germany but our president rejected those proposals, and chose instead a level of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.

The President’s Decision Was Therefore Doomed To Failure!

Because a deployment so incredibly small will effectively have to expend ALL its energies simply protecting itself.

The Lebanese Deployment

Similar to our tragic and somewhat aimless 1982 Lebanon deployment, we’ll now be left with.

No capability to train the Iraqis.

No capability to build their U.S. equipped air force.

And no capability to mediate ethnic disputes.

Did Obama Really Want A Successful Outcome?

Almost certainly, "No", he didn’t!

Because Obama’s proposal was an unmistakable signal of unseriousness, and it quickly became clear that he just wanted out.

Some Proof Of What I’m Writing?

Massoud Barzani, who has been the leader of the Kurds for two decades and was the staunchest of U.S. allies, just visited Tehran to bend a knee to both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Obama’s Lame Excuse

Our friends should not have been left out in the cold to seek Iranian protection.

Three years and a won war gave Obama the opportunity to establish a lasting strategic alliance with the Arab world’s second most important power.

Obama’s excuse is the Iraqi refusal to grant legal immunity to U.S. forces, but the Bush administration encountered the same problem and overcame it.

Obama obviously had little desire to so however, and is now attempting to portray the withdrawal as a success.

So Why Didn’t Obama Want To Win?

Obama opposed the war which is understandable.

But when he became commander in chief, the terrible price had already been paid in blood and treasure, so surely his obligation was to make something of that sacrifice, to secure the strategic gains that sacrifice had already achieved?!

The Bottom Line

Years from now, we will most likely still be asking, not,

"How did the US lose the war in Iraq?".

But, "Why did the Obama Administration do it?".

Will The Choice Be Sarah or Hilary In 2012?

Michael Redbourn — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:48:27 +0000

Articles and comments about Hilary Clinton’s low profile, and lack of visibility are appearing more frequently in the media, and not without good reason.

Every other Secretary of State that I can think of was very high profile and travelled with their President on almost every overseas trip, but Obama is keeping Hilary almost cloistered, and if he does give her a job then it’s one that will damage her politically.

Before being appointed Secretary of State, Hilary was known to be very pro-Israel, but the only high profile job that she has so far been was given was to heavily criticize its settlement’s policy and demand that it stop building new ones and tear down existing ones.

According to CBS News Hilary won 54% of the Jewish vote during the primaries compared to Obama’s 43%, so causing Hilary to alienate herself from the Jewish vote would be the politically shrewd if he fears her.

May’s opinion polls gave Hilary a 71% approval rating, compared to 65% for Obama, so a strategy of keeping her out of the public’s eye and damaging her whenever possible would make a lot of sense if things start to look iffy for 2012.

The way that Hilary is presently being handled in some ways mirrors Bibi Netanyahu’s handling of Avigdor Lieberman, but the reasons for such handling are very different.

Bibi knows that Lieberman is perceived by Obama and most European heads of state as extremely right wing, and Lieberman doesn’t mince his words and could therefore spell trouble.

Netanyahu therefore uses Ehud Barak who is the head of the left leaning Labor party to cover the United States, and has Lieberman deal with the Russians. Lieberman also gets to do European trips because he is the head of Israel’s biggest coalition party and Bibi sees Europe as far less important anyway.

Obama is at -8 in today’s Rasmussen poll and he has a very bumpy road ahead of him with the upcoming health reform and many other issues too. Unemployment might hit 14% this year and many Americans believe that Obama’s policies are burying the country so deep under debt that it may never recover.

Sarah Palin just took a big gamble and 71% of Republicans now say they would vote for her for president.

Tapping Hilary to be Secretary of State was a brilliant move, but if Obama overplays his hand and continues to keep her cloistered then her situation will eventually become untenable and she may be forced to resign and then we might find ourselves having to choose between Hilary and Palin in 2012.

Updated August 5, 2009

According to a just released Rasmussen opinion poll, if America were to elect a female president in the near future, it would be Hillary Clinton.

In a hypothetical match-up between the two most formidable female candidates in their respective parties, Clinton would defeat former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin 51% to 39%.

What is perhaps even more interesting, is that Clinton would defeat Obama by six points, 48% to 42%.

Women overwhelmingly favor Clinton over Palin, 59% to 32% whereas most men favor the GOP ex-governor by eight points, 48% to 40%.

Palin would get 71% of the Republican vote, and Clinton would capture 81% of Democrats.

Supposing Obama Follows In Rice’s Footsteps

Michael Redbourn — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:50:00 +0000

Condoleezza Rice Criticizes Cheney For "Cheap Shots," Insists She …

You guys better sit down for this: According to Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney is kind of an a******! Of course, the former secretary of state is far too classy to say it outright, but she's obviously rather pissed at Cheney for …

Publish Date: 09/02/2011 17:00

http://jezebel.com/5836840/condoleezza-rice-criticizes-cheney-for-cheap-shots-insists-she-never-cried

portland imc – 2011.09.11 – Condoleezza Rice Speaking at PSU

Condoleezza Rice Speaking at PSU. On Wednesday, Oct 19th, Former Secretary of State (during the Bush reign) will be giving a keynote speech at PSU. You may recall that this is a lady who had an oil tanker named after her …

Publish Date: 09/11/2011 21:41

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2011/09/410188.shtml

Following Obama’s election to the presidency so much has been written about “equality” and “America having finally come of age” etc. but few have questioned if it’s true or even thought to ask what will happen if he fails.

Would Obama have won if the Republicans had been able to put up a more viable candidate.

The answer is probably ‘no’.

Huge numbers of Republicans failed to vote and many that might have voted Republican didn’t vote because of McCain’s age and other factors.

If you question the above then just consider how popular Palin’s rallies were even though her beliefs and stances offended so many.

After her nomination she not only attracted bigger crowds than McCain but often bigger ones than Obama a well.

Just over three years ago Condoleezza Rice was seriously considered in many circles as a possible candidate for the Presidency and we heard similar comments to those that we’re hearing now about Afro-Americans.

But judged by any yardstick, Rice was a disaster.

Whereas I wish Obama well he has little likelihood of success and every chance of failure because the odds are heavily stacked against him.

Even if he does everything ‘right’, Americans will not be feeling any relief from the economic crisis even two years from now and they will have watched people losing their houses and jobs for those two long years.

The result of this prognosis should be plain.

The Democrats would be cast out and Obama would in all likelihood follow them and finish his first term in ignominy.

The question that then begs and answer is, “How long would it then take before America saw another Afro-American Secretary of State or President?”.

I imagine that this so called ‘equality” would be once again delayed for many decades because America was so slow to experiment a first time one can fairly safely assume that it would be much slower to experiment a second time.

Condo – A Star That Quickly Faded

Michael Redbourn — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:47:00 +0000

It now seems almost impossible to imagine that just over three years ago that Condoleezza Rice was seriously considered in many circles as a possible candidate for the Presidency.

Following her appointment as Secretary of State at the start of George Bush’s second term she made a mini-world tour and was greeted almost ecstatically in many countries. She thrilled huge crowds in Wiesbaden by arriving in knee-high leather boots and in Paris, the French ambassador to America speculated that, “everyone was determined to fall in love” with her.

Ms Rice grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and had this to say about the white supremacists that blew up the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church there in 1963.

“I remember the bombing of that Sunday School at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963. I did not see it happen, but I heard it happen, and I felt it happen, just a few blocks away at my father’s church. It is a sound that I will never forget, that will forever reverberate in my ears. That bomb took the lives of four young girls, including my friend and playmate, Denise McNair. The crime was calculated to suck the hope out of young lives, bury their aspirations. But those fears were not propelled forward, those terrorists failed”.

In November of 2007 Rice told a closed meeting of Arab and Israeli envoys in Annapolis that her childhood in the segregated U.S. south helped her to understand the plight of Palestinians and the fear felt by Israelis , “I know what it’s like to hear that you can’t use a certain road, or pass through a checkpoint because you are a Palestinian. I know what it is like to feel discriminated against and powerless”, and this single statement probably meant that no Israeli politician would ever again consider her to be an honest broker.

Rice’s big break came in 2000, when then Candidate George Bush selected her to coach him in foreign policy and after Bush admitted to her that he knew next to nothing about it an almost instant rapport apparently sprang up between them. They couldn’t have been more different however since Bush was a kind of reformed party guy and Rice came from an almost puritanical background.

Rice later described Bush as having “an incredibly inquisitive mind” and he went on to call her “the most powerful woman in the history of the world”.

Rice’s failures as Secretary of State could perhaps have been predicted if she were judged on her performance as National Security Adviser.

A national security adviser is meant to coordinate foreign-policy yet Rice seemed totally unable to resolve the many disputes between Donald Rumsfeld at Defense and Mr. Powell at State and even putting that aside she can be blamed for many of the mistakes in Iraq. If she failed to see that too few troops were being sent then she erred and if she knew but didn’t tell Bush then she failed.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, tried to explain Rice’s failures, ‘We had a one word description for the National Security Council and that one word was “dysfunctional” and I asked myself many times: “How that could be? How could a woman as competent as Dr. Rice seemed to be, indeed, Secretary Powell had told me she was a sort of a protégé of his, head up an organization that could be so dysfunctional? I’d say simply she had her eye on the prize, and the prize was a Cabinet position and a particular Cabinet position, Secretary of state and as national security adviser, one works one’s ambitions to achieve that position”.

The ongoing genocide in Darfur was all but ignored, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not improved and relations with North Korea, Iran, Syria, Lebanon have languished at best or soured at worst.

She refused to accept any blame for the attacks of September 11th 2001 and her campaign to promote democracy in the Middle East comes in for particular criticism. When the Palestinian elections and those in Lebanon created unwanted and unexpected results Ms Rice’s response was that they were simple aberrations although the administration later gave up on up trying to promote freer societies in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The threat of putting missiles in several ex-soviet countries alienated the one country that could really have brought about a change in Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Soviet policy was supposedly Rice’s field of expertise.

Condoleezza’s inability to admit to error was perhaps her greatest weakness and in almost every case it would seem that her style led to a deterioration in diplomatic relations. Rice contributed in no small way to the undoing of the Bush administration and that will be her legacy.