6.22.14: The Notion of Doing Nothing in Iraq

In considering what to do in Iraq, from an American perspective, what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said made a lot of sense.  Mr. Netanyahu said that both the Sunnis and the Shiites are enemies of the United States so neither should be given an advantage over the other.  In essence he means that they should just be left to kill each other.  Senator Paul explained that we've armed the allies of ISIS, a group more violent than Al Qaeda, in their fight against Assad in Syria, and if you extrapolate that out it means that ISIS is using weapons/money that they got from us and are now fighting the Shiite government that we are supporting.  What both men are saying is that the United States should be engaged but not involved.  

But here's the rub?  The United States has a sense of responsibility to make it work in Iraq because 1) we set all these events in motion thinking that we could set up Iraq as a democracy, and 2) in these same interviews today, both men unequivocally stated that they do not want Iran to have a dominant influence over Iraq.  The Powell doctrine is seemingly our moral obligation that if we broke it, we bought, and we have to fix it.  Erika Harold put it very well during the round table discussion in saying that Americans are 'not proud of the notion of doing nothing.'  How true.

Given all these contradictory circumstances and motivations, you're seeing a myriad of opinions on what should be done along with a huge helping of criticism for Presideent Obama. The centerpiece of that criticism came in the form of an op-ed written by former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz in the Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/articles/dick-cheney-and-liz-cheney-the-collapsing-obama-doctrine-1403046522).  Highlighted by the following quote that starts the second paragraph (discussed on MTP):

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.

With all due respect to Mr. Cheney, we fear that his transplanted heart is not pumping enough blood and oxygen to his brain because to say that about President Obama without applying that to yourself or former President Bush, absolving yourself of responsibility is delusional and not of sound mind, plain and simple.  And at the very least, it reassuring to hear Senator Rand Paul say that the same questions of competence being asked of President Obama could be asked of the original supporters of the Iraq war, namely Mr. Cheney.  He went as far as to say that the Iraq War emboldened Iran, which flies directly in the face of Mr. Cheney's assessment.  And to use Mr. Paul's term, we shouldn't be nick-picking the president's decisions right now.  The one page that everyone seems to be in agreement with is that we're not going to send troops back into Iraq.  

As in Cheney op-ed, they stated the following:

Despite clear evidence of the dire need for American leadership around the world, the desperation of our allies and the glee of our enemies, President Obama seems determined to leave office ensuring he has taken America down a notch.

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne described this as practically accusing the President of treason.  In fact, that's exactly what that statement implies - treason against the Cheney neo-con philosophy.  And when 'leadership' is mentioned in this context what is really meant is a military intervention.  Mr. Cheney, hawks and other neo-cons believe that we should go back in or should have left a large force in country.  Senator John McCain has suggested that a military presence similar to that of Japan in longevity would be the right move.  But the American people wanted our troops out of Iraq because the reasons why we went in were proven to be false, and they also don't have the appetite to occupy another country for 70 years.  

Really Mr. Obama is trying to save face for Dick Cheney.  Mr. Obama ran on getting our troops out of Iraq and that's what the American people overwhelming wanted, but in doing so, he also had to maintain the 'wisdom' of what the administration before his had started.  However, having it both ways is an impossibility.

As we've said in our previous column, air strikes against ISIS are tricky because as soon as collateral damage happens, it will seem like the U.S. is not just fighting extremists but Sunnis in general.  And as Katty Kay, Anchor of BBC World News America, smartly questioned - where does that leave us in 8 months time?  It leaves us mired in Iraq all over again. The solution is diplomatic of course, hence Secretary John Kerry being in the region, but unless moderate Sunnis can be brought to the table all you're going to see is the escalation of a religious civil war.

Round Table: E.J. Dionne Columnist, The Washington Post; David Brooks Columnist, The New York Times; Katty Kay Anchor, BBC World News America; and Erika Harold Former Congressional Candidate (R-IL)