[Thanos]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

andyt andyt:

What would the US winning in Iraq look like, and what would be required to accomplish it?

Well they did win the war. They lost the Peace when Obama withdrew before order had been restored.

The US withdrawal was something the Iraqi government wanted. They insisted the US have a timetable for leaving and Obama stuck to it. In addition the main failure was that of the Iraqi government itself, mainly because Maliki as a Shiite sectarian had no interest or will at all to form a government that included representation for the Sunnis. On every political level the Iraqis failed on developing a proper representative system needed for a multi-sect country. No amount of money spent by the US, or a perpetual American occupation, would have accomplished anything if at the root of every problem over there is the complete unwillingness of the Iraqis themselves to even attempt to live peacefully with each other.

[N_Fiddledog]

Funny how the story changed over the years, isn't it?

[Thanos]

Pretty tiny compared to the original lying that sent the US military into that goddamn country in the first place.

[N_Fiddledog]

Funnier though, isn't it?

I mean, first of all the Light Bringer is repeatedly staring out at the camera and saying "I ended the war in Iraq." Then it became obvious he pulled out to soon and he proclaims, "Hey, leaving wasn't my idea."

BTW, did we ever figure out why it was possible to transition West Germany and Japan into peaceful, compatible nations after those wars were won, but peace could not be maintained in Iraq and Vietnam after the collective asses of those two nations were handed to them?

[Thanos]

Love it when the armchair & internet warriors that never put a uniform on in their entire lives come out with their 'if we'd only toughed it out and gotten a lot more of our men killed in countries that we never bothered to understand we woulda won' schtick. It's up there with Kramer's pratfalls on Seinfeld as far as comedy goes.

[N_Fiddledog]

Thanos Thanos:

Love it when the armchair & internet warriors that never put a uniform on in their entire lives come out with their 'if we'd only toughed it out and gotten a lot more of our men killed in countries that we never bothered to understand we woulda won' schtick. It's up there with Kramer's pratfalls on Seinfeld as far as comedy goes.

Oh unpuff your little chest. You don't know me. I don't know you. Let's keep it that way and not pretend any different.

As far as the actual subject goes, I think you've somehow missed what I said 2 or 3 times now. I didn't say we "woulda won". I said we did win. Then Obama lost the peace.

How many will die now as a result of his screw-up? I don't know. Best guess is lots.

[Thanos]

'We' didn't win shit in Iraq. The Petraeus surge strategy quelled enough of the violence that enough stability resulted and a civilian government could take some degree of control. The Sunnis that were sympathetic to Al Qaeda and the Baath renegades that were responsible for most of the violence came in from the cold based on promises that they'd receive some kind of status, representation, and protection as a minority group in and from the new government. The US left according to the timetable that the Bush Admin agreed to and handed control to the Maliki government as the Iraqis wanted. Then the Maliki Shiite government returned to their usual sectarian politics. The Sunnis were once again alienated and when the ISIS movement spread out of the Syrian chaos the Sunnis had no interest at all in propping up the Baghdad government or doing anything to impede ISIS.

That's what happened in Iraq and it's entirely on the Maliki Shiites for what's happened. Well, them and assholes in the US like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the think-tank warriors who kept claiming that the Iraqi government was run by some kind of 'Founding Fathers' instead of the worthless Potemkin village the entire place has been since the US handed over control. It's a repeat of Vietnam because the reality on the ground is that the governments installed by the US aren't anywhere equal to the lies that pro-war and pro-intervention conservatives keep telling about them. There were two choices in Iraq. Either not go in at all and let the place dissolve naturally on it's own after Saddam eventually died or was assassinated. Or occupy the place permanently with an American military government in control of all aspects of governmental management. There was no in-between to be found anywhere, and anyone who says their was is either delusional about the situation or just another bald-faced liar doing the propaganda work for the goddamn GOP-connected think-tanks that set the entire debacle in motion to begin with.

And how many will die because of Obama's 'screw up'? Who knows, but it'll be mostly Sunnis and Shiites that make no attempt at all to live together in any sort of harmony. I don't care about them. What I care about is the American and other allied lives that were lost directly because of what the Bush Administration did in 2003, with their invasion that was based entirely on lies. Every single one of those soldiers died for nothing. And IMO anyone who still refuses to see it, or hides behind the same atrocious ideology that kick off the debacle in the first place, has no morals or ethics whatsoever.

And that some of you people are willing to do it all over again in Iran, with some insane 'third time lucky' belief that's openly failed twice before, makes it all that more sad. And completely obscene too.

[N_Fiddledog]

That went off in a lot of different directions, but for now let's deal with this.

$1:

The US left according to the timetable that the Bush Admin agreed to and handed control to the Maliki government as the Iraqis wanted. Then the Maliki Shiite government returned to their usual sectarian politics. The Sunnis were once again alienated and when the ISIS movement spread out of the Syrian chaos the Sunnis had no interest at all in propping up the Baghdad government or doing anything to impede ISIS

All true, but...

On the video on the previous page Bush said in 2007, "to begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous, for Iraq, for the region, and for the United States..."

Then in 2008 he signs the Status of Forces agreement that sets a timetable for withdrawal.

How much did this matter? Obama didn't think it much of it. He was taking credit for a withdrawal timetable as his own plan. Bush's timetable didn't seem to exist to Obama at the time.

Many believed there was some flexibility in the accord.

$1:

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had predicted that after 2011 he would have expected to see "perhaps several tens of thousands of American troops" as part of a residual force in Iraq.[15] Some Americans had discussed "loopholes"[16] and some Iraqis had said they believed parts of the pact remained a "mystery".[13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.%E2%80 ... _Agreement

The NY Times thought there was flexibility in the Status of Forces Agreement.

$1:

That status-of-forces agreement remains subject to change, by mutual agreement, and Army planners acknowledge privately that they are examining projections that could see the number of Americans hovering between 30,000 and 50,000 — and some say as high as 70,000 — for a substantial time even beyond 2011.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/us/po ... ml?_r=1&em

In 2008 Reuters was saying...

$1:

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he and other senior U.S. commanders accept the terms of the new status of forces agreement, or SOFA, that will govern the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq after December 31.

But Mullen said he and other U.S. military officials, including U.S. Commander in Iraq Gen. Ray Odierno and his boss, Gen. David Petraeus, continue to prefer a withdrawal based on security conditions rather than timetables.

"I'm in a position that is still conditions-based and I think it needs to be measured," he said. "Three years is a long time. Conditions could change in that period of time."

U.S. commanders in the field have repeatedly warned that security gains are fragile and could easily be reversed.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/11/ ... CB20081117

This one from the NY Times 2011 shows the Iraqis and the Americans putting the final ink on the agreement. At the time they were still talking about residual forces with flexible increases. Also...

$1:

At the end of the Bush administration, when the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, was negotiated, setting 2011 as the end of the United States’ military role, officials had said the deadline was set for political reasons, to put a symbolic end to the occupation and establish Iraq’s sovereignty. But there was an understanding, a senior official here said, that a sizable American force would stay in Iraq beyond that date.

Over the last year, in late-night meetings at the fortified compound of the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, and in videoconferences between Baghdad and Washington, American and Iraqi negotiators had struggled to reach an agreement. All the while, both Mr. Obama and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, gave the world a wink and nod, always saying that Iraq was ready to stand on its own but never fully closing the door on the possibility of American troops’ staying on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/world ... .html?_r=0

So there were all kinds of possibilities for Obama to maintain a presence in Iraq if he wanted to. According to him at the time he was in charge of the timetable. Bush's general rule of thumb was they should listen to the commanders as to when and how to finally move out. The commanders thought they had some flexibility.

It was Obama's decision. The buck stopped there. He screwed up. Read the complete last article. You'll see how.

And how many might die as a result? Well ISIS is behind killings in the west already and promising more, and there's no guarantee an alliance of the willing might not have to return to clean up Obama's mess in Iraq. None of that had to happen. They just had to wait until the Iraqi government was truly ready to take over. Having people that could have organized that might have helped too.

But at the core the surge was successful. Al Qaeda in Iraq was pretty much cleaned up at the time, and the leftover Baathists were driven so deep underground they never had to be heard from again.