The Current Situation in Iraq is George Bush’s fault. Period.

Filed in National by on June 16, 2014

To be Republican is to loud and wrong and loudly wrong whenever possible. The noise is so wrong and so loud and kept up for so long that weak minded people (the national media for example) sometimes mistake the persistence for legitimacy. Volume for validity. So if you hear one of your liberal minded friends fall prey to to thinking that Obama “has his share of blame” for Iraq – quickly correct them.

Bush enabled the current Sunni power in Iraq by invading Iraq under false pretenses, and with no plan for the occupation.

Bush elevated Osama bin Laden and Bin Laden’s dreams to legitimacy.

Bush removed Saddam Hussein, Bun Laden’s key enemy in the region and Iraq’s tenuous factional stability. And,

Bush bequeathed military and political power to radicalized Sunni’s that would have been unthinkable prior to our handing over arms by the crate load, and tens of millions of dollars for “rebuilding” that was delivered in duffel bags off the back of trucks.

The man to blame for what’s happening in Iraq is not President Obama—it’s President Bush., the U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq — under deliberately fraudulent pretenses – had a great deal to do with enabling the current emergence of a Sunni terrorist military power in Iraq, but it goes much deeper than that. The recent success of ISIS — the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — is exactly what Osama bin Laden had hoped that the 9/11 attacks would lead to. And thanks to Bush’s spectacularly foolish responses, bin Laden’s dream has come true.

Before 9/11, bin Laden was a terrorist and could only dream of becoming the “holy warrior” he imagined himself to be. When Bush chose to respond to 9/11 as an act of war, rather than a crime, he gave bin Laden the gift he had always wanted, just by conferring that status.

First, by invading Afghanistan, Bush validated bin Laden’s claim that what was happening was a religious war between Islam and the Christian West. Then, by invading Iraq and deposing his most prominent ideological foe, Saddam Hussein, Bush gave bin Laden a second gift—a much stronger position of influence throughout the region.

But the invasion also fractured Iraq’s tenuous factional stability, and was followed by a whole series of bad decisions making matters even worse. (There was a seeming exception to this pattern, the vaunted “surge,” but as Middle East specialist Stephen Walt tweeted on June 14, “Clear now that Iraq ‘surge’ in 2006-07 failed. Had 2 goals: reduce violence & promote political reconciliation. Achieved 1st but not 2nd.”) As a result, the success of ISIS and the threatened disintegration of Iraq gives bin Laden’s ideological descendants a third gift—a level of military and political power they could never have dreamed of, much less achieved, on their own.

About the Author ()

Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (6)

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  1. Aint's Taking it Any More says:

    Trying to get it straight.

    F’ed up going in. F’ed up getting out. Yet today’s mess is entirely Bush’s fault. Really! Is the egg so easily unscrambled?

    Bin Laden a criminal. That’s rich. Where the Japanese just trespassers? What about the Nazis – yet another misunderstood band of blond hair, blue eyes aryan trespassers into Poland.

    Gifts for Bin Laden – the US raised his profile by attacking him in response to 9/11. Do we ignore that Clinton tried to kill him in 1998 using the US military? Where was he on the terrorist profile scale then?

    Bush fucked up as badly as a president can when he attacked Iraq. No so with Afghanistan and Bin Laden.

  2. stan merriman says:

    Bush fucked up Afghanistan too because he declared war on not just Bin Laden but the entirety of the Taliban, whom we were in alliance with and trained/equipped as fighters against the Soviets as our proxy army. Yes they were horrible but there’s lots of horrible around the world we can’t eradicate through killing. This was stupid overreach creating enemies out of former “comrades”; Al Qaeda removal should have been a special ops project only….a policing action. Not all out war against the Taliban which many close to the situation there predicted would lead us into a quagmire. Sure did, didn’t it?

  3. Aint's Taking it Any More says:

    Acknowledge that any conclusion that the Afghanistan invasion was the only appropriate response is like standing on jello for balance.

  4. SussexAnon says:

    We were going to drain the swamps, democracy would flourish and there would be peace throughout the middle east.

    And magic bunnies would float on rainbow clouds and fart rainbows.

    Since Bin Laden was in Pakistan, I guess we should have attacked them, too.

    Or done something with Saudi Arabia other than scooping up the Bin Laden family and flying them out of the US while the rest of air traffic was grounded.

  5. Aint's Taking it Any More says:

    They told me that the bunnies were farting jelly beans

  6. SussexAnon says:

    See: Bunny, Easter v. Wolfowitz, Paul

    The Easter bunny sued for copyright infringement so they had to switch to rainbows or pay an licensing fee.

    The right wing was not pleased with this given their affinity for the jelly bean president and the fear rainbows now spreading thegay.