The Kurds have ‘intervened’. They’ve helped themselves to Kirkuk.
Hm. Well, if the Kurds have their own force that is willing to fight ISIS, that’s something. And they also think of Mosul as theirs, so . . .
There tribal militias will also fight. trouble is at the end of this you’re back to Civil War.
And no one is going to let the Kurds keep Kirkuk.
End of what? A civil war is what Iraq is having now.
So who’s going to take it away from them? ISIS? The government? I don’t think the government can.
Rush Limbaugh has it figured out. Bush/Republicans won the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and now Obama/Democrats are losing the war in Iraq. He is saying right now that Obama is refusing to send air-strikes as Maliki has requested because Obama wants democracy and the American military to fail in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How many idiots are out there who will buy into it.
Muqtada al Sadr is putting his militia back together. Since they are Shia like Iran, perhaps Putin will give/sell them some heavy weapons to use against the Sunni backed terrorists.
Give Mookie’s militia what they want / they will clean up this mess.
The last sentence in the Dreyfuss commentary:
“Ironically, America’s best ally in the Syria-Iraq civil war is an unlikely one: Iran.” Arm the Shiites and Kurd Alliance.
That is true. And we don’t have to do anything but remind everybody that there was no AlQaeda inside Iraq on or before March 17 2003 when Bush decided to kick the UN inspectors out of Iraq so he could take down the government that kept al Qaeda out and was a government that was not hiding WMD from the inspectors as Bush claimed there was no doubt.
If they ask us to go back, we should go back.
[Sir Richard Wharton] We should give them every support, short of help. [/SRW]
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That is true. And we don’t have to do anything but remind everybody that there was no AlQaeda inside Iraq on or before March 17 2003 when Bush decided to kick the UN inspectors out of Iraq so he could take down the government that kept al Qaeda out and was a government that was not hiding WMD from the inspectors as Bush claimed there was no doubt.
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That’s all we have to do? Just tell the world that there was no AQ in Iraq before, and, what, AQ and ISIS will shrug and walk away? 
I don’t believe the Iranians would be too keen on arming the Kurds (and it’s moot anyway, since we did that already). As for the Shiites, they are also already armed and kind of in control of Iraq already, so whether or not their militias need to be used, re-activated, armed or whatever is kind of up to the Iraqis. I’m not sure that’s something we should decide for a sovereign nation. If Iraq wants closer relations to Iran, that’s again up to them, not us, and no of this has much to do with what the West should or shouldn’t do about the present situation in Iraq.
What do you mean ‘worth trying’ ? Establishing a stable government was not the reason for invading Iraq. The reason was because Saddam Hussein was supposedly not cooperating with UN inspectors by hiding stockpiles of WMD from inspectors and nothing else. Nobody authorized an invasion of Iraq to ‘establish a stable government’ .
No. You miss the point. The US should stay out of it altogether. The problem here domestically in the US is that the pro-invasion political forces that you were aligned with prior to the 2003 invasion have already begun screaming for military action now that the mess you and them helped create. Boehner just said al-Qaeda is marching toward Baghdad while Obama takes a nap.
Boehner needs to be reminded why al Qaeada is in Iraq in the first place. And perhaps so do you.
[QUOTE=NotfooledbyW]
No. You miss the point. The US should stay out of it altogether. The problem here domestically in the US is that the pro-invasion political forces that you were aligned with prior to the 2003 invasion have already begun screaming for military action now that the mess you and them helped create. Boehner just said al-Qaeda is marching toward Baghdad while Obama takes a nap.
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None of this was in what you wrote, so I ‘missed the point’ because, well, you didn’t actually put it in there.
As to the rest, you can keep trotting out that I initially supported the invasion if you like, but it was old when you did it the 100th time in the past and has no bearing on this discussion. You bring it up to try and poison the well to get your own narrative in, but you are far from subtle about it.
As for what Boehner thinks, I don’t give a rats ass how he (or any other Republican, right winger or anyone else) is spinning this to try and make Obama look bad. The irony is that he could probably take lessons from you on convoluted and contorted spinning based on your responses in the Ukraine thread.
So, cutting out all of your convoluted horseshit, spin and attempts at well poisoning, your actual position is that the US should do nothing and leave this up to the Iraqis. Correct? That’s fine…why don’t you just stick to THAT?
Not exactly. A big reason the 2003 invasion was stupid beyond imagination was the risk that something like this would develop where intervention would make sense.
If Cheney and his ilk were still in charge, the question would be a no-brainer: Don’t let those babies play with matches. Unfortunately U.S. governance is still not sane enough to attempt a major war. The GOP, whose highest priority is Obama’s failure, would be implicitly rooting for ISIL. And, unfortunately, I think there’s a good chance that the White House will be turned over to an incompetent in 2017.
The U.S. needs to let countries with saner governance take the lead, while quietly providing arms and intelligence.
Let’s just go bomb the shit out of some poor people. That usually solves things, doesn’t it?
It may be time to support Kurdish independence. Beyond that I’m opposed to any direct military intervention for now though I would support targeted air strikes and commando operations as we did in Pakistan.
Why? Every person in Iraq over 6 months old already has an automatic weapon or two in their closet and an RPG by the front door. They have collectively made the decision that “Iraq” is not worth fighting for. Who are we to override their decision? The population of the region, collectively, will ultimately decide what type of country (countries?) they want to have and what type of government they want. The current country called Iraq is not worth saving.
What should the West do about the present situation in Iraq?
According to many folks who write into newspaper comments sections, the clear thing we must do right away without delay is:
Blame Obama.
No. You miss the point. “The US should stay out of it altogether.”
What I put in there you failed to cite. This is what I referred to as being true. Dreyfuss wrote:
"The last sentence in the Dreyfuss commentary: “Ironically, America’s best ally in the Syria-Iraq civil war is an unlikely one: Iran.” .
If Iraq can’t handle this Sunni/terrorist offensive they should ask their neighbors for help not us.
Do you think Iran wants to see Iraq fall under any kind of Sunni control again? if not let Iran take the lead in turning it back or live with the Sunnis taking over.
Iraq is in the news again and now those who supported the invasion after UN inspectors were back in, don’t want to talk about the fact that the problems there today were caused by a horrible decision made in March 2003. And now the same supporters of that terrible decision are fuming that Obama didnt keep US troops there now and forever. Its sickening when you think about. The criticism coming from former invasion supporters is sickening.
Iran has already allegedly sent in their Quds forces to help out the Iraqi government.