tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post3718210497669115374..comments2024-03-26T06:17:49.527-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: Who Lost Iraq?Stuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-83440728726068635822013-08-18T13:49:52.547-07:002013-08-18T13:49:52.547-07:00"The easiest way to end a war is to surrender..."The easiest way to end a war is to surrender and go home. In the minds of our enemies, that is what the administration did in Iraq."<br /><br />Quite so. But it isn't necessary to be an enemy to come to that conclusion. The Bush administration managed the American public's perception of the level of violence in Iraq by minimizing combat. It did so (in concert with allies like the British) by ceding the entire west of the country to the Sunnis, and the entire south to Iran and its proxy al Sadr. Then it armed the Sunnis as a counterweight to al Sadr, and retreated to Baghdad. This retreat, let us recall, was cleverly named the "Surge".<br /><br />When a US Marine Corps officer told a reporter that the cessation of of the Marine attack on Fallujah and turning it over to the enemy was a blueprint for the rest of Iraq, he captured the US agenda in a nutshell.<br /><br />Besides Fallujah, I could offer multiple examples of US abdication. Let's never forget that the concerted political effort to get rid of the phrase "War on Terror" was born in the Bush White House. As one general put it when he tried to sell this perfidy, when we use the term "war" we tend to think of the military as the solution. For the Bushies (GWB, Powell, Rice, Gates, etc.), doing as little as possible in Iraq in order to make it easier to get the hell out was the only goal that mattered. (It's worth keeping that in mind when pondering the origins of the mindset that would lead the US government to label a mass shooting by someone yelling Allahu Akbar as "workplace violence". Call it "terrorism", and we might reach the mistaken conclusion that it would be a good idea to find the supporters of that terrorism and crush them. Ditto the Obamaites' reluctance to attach the T-word to "events" in Benghazi.<br /><br />To achieve their Grand Bargain with Iran -- Iran gets most of Iraq, the Administration gets a political exit from the theater -- the Bushies found it necessary to allow Iran to use its proxies to use explosives to kill hundreds, perhaps thousands of our troops in Iraq, with zero risk of retaliation. Iran knew the Bushies wanted out in the worst way, and would never engage in the level of military action needed to shut down Iranian aggression inside Iraq. (The Administration's pseudo-action as it pretended to confront Iran's nuclear program was another aspect of our utter surrender.)<br /><br />The reduced level of fighting allowed the Bushies to claim success. Peace was at hand. In reality, the fighting only died down because once the US had surrendered, there was no longer any reason to fight us. Retreating to our bases, we had already gone home in every sense except that we still had some troops there -- troops that were, by design, doing absolutely nothing. Obama brought them physically home, adding a closing bracket to the Bushies' phony war.<br /><br /><br /><br />Lastangonoreply@blogger.com