America's goal was to have a democratic Iraq and Shiite Nori al-Maliki would be the first president to lead this pluralistic society, but what Mr. Maliki proceeded to do was alienate and oppress minorities - Sunnis and Kurds - through the power of central government and resentment reached a boiling point.
And an opportunity presented itself.
Inspired by Al Qaeda, Sunnis fighting Assad in Syria joined with Sunnis in Iraq joined forces and formed ISIS - The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria - with the aspiration of creating their own fundamentalist state. As Richard Engel noted at the beginning of the program, the map is being redrawn to what it looked like 100 years ago before the French and English created the state that is now the crumbling Iraq.
source: Washington Post
Make no mistake, it is a sectarian conflict and Sunni extremists are threatening to overtake Baghdad, but what's stopping them is the mildly surprising organization of Shiite Militias, not the Iraqi central government.
In political discourse, it's become the lazy American norm to lay blame without providing any real alternatives or solutions. Who's to blame for this latest warring in terms of how it relates to the United States and its actions - President Obama or President Bush? The Washington Post's David Ignatius explained that we left Iraq as carelessly as we entered so the answer is at this point doesn't matter whose to blame.
Mitt Romney, who has been critical of the President's foreign policy explained that timing was essential and that Mr. Obama didn't take advantage of that. For example, Mr. Romney said, when Assad was on his heels in Syria, the Mr. Obama didn't 'act appropriately,' and should have armed the opposition to topple the dictator. He didn't mention that the opposition to Mr. Assad is in fact ISIS. Where Paul Wolfowitz and the New Yorker's Dexter Filkins cleaned that up somewhat by saying that the United States needs to find the more moderate forces in Syria who are fighting both the Assad regime and ISIS and cooperate with them. Good luck finding enough of those forces.
Meanwhile, the Kurds have taken the opportunity to control the northern city of Kirkuk and fifty-six percent of Iraq's oil revenue in the hopes of creating an autonomous Kurdish homeland. If the U.S. was smart, that's where they should put their clandestine dollars because the Kurds have set up one of the most moderate states in the region.
Mr. Gregory asked Mr. Romney what the U.S. should be fighting for in the region and he asked saying that the United States should be fighting to preserve freedom and to guard against the region becoming an active hotbed for planning terrorist attacks against the United States. Well, the 'preserving freedom' part is a rhetorically empty statement if actually assess what's happening on the ground, but the second part of making it a launching site for terrorist attacks against the U.S. does require attention. If you are to believe David Ignatius, it's only a matter of time, if ISIS establishes real control of land in the region, before they start directing their attacks externally. Obviously, that is the main concern for all involved in the discussion - particularly Congressman Peter King (R-NY) and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) who carelessly used biblical language when he said that the United States would bring a 'ring of fire' upon anyone who attacked Americans.
It's this later part that requires the U.S. to act, but after losing 4,477 U.S. soldiers, spending $1,7 trillion and finding out that the reason we went their in the first place was all false, the actions that the U.S. can take are very limited. Boots on the ground isn't, and shouldn't, even be on the table. However, there is no doubt that ISIS can not be allowed to annex more territory.
Senator Manchin said that he was open to the possibility of using air strikes against the Sunni extremists to stop them. It's something to be considered, but know that it sets up the U.S. as a more immediate target for retaliation, even if the airstrikes are under the guise of a coalition. However, it is a coalition that needs to be built - an overwhelming one because moderates have to prevail, and that requires the U.S., Russia, China, Turkey, England, France, et al. have to come together to make a decision. How far are we going to let this go?
What we noticing is that there are a growing number of hot spots where a group of people want their own little purified states - Eastern Ukraine, the Congo, Syria and Iraq. We're not seeing a coming together of people in the world, but a survival of the most violent coming about. Isolation and extremism is devolution.
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One Last Note:
We didn't discuss the big domestic political happening of the week - House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) losing in the primary, but to give further illustration to the theme of exclusion in this column, we'll say this. (And by no means are these two things on the same level of comparison.) The Tea Party victory in Virginia was stride forward in advancing their principles, and Mr. Cantor was far too caught up in his own ambition, but to dismiss someone whose general view is the same, but now doesn't match a more narrower view is very troublesome and basically heads in the same direction as oppression, no matter how passive. We think you get the rest of the point.
More about the politics of it all later in the week.
Round Table: David Ignatius, Washington Post Columnist, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Dexter Filkins, New Yorker Staff Writer and fmr. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
Round Table 2: Ruth Marcus, Washington Post Columnist, Fmr. Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN),
Ken Cuccinelli, President, Senate Conservatives Fund & former Virginia Attorney General and
Steve Schmidt, GOP Strategist & Senior Adviser to John McCain’s 2008 Presidential Campaign
