Not only at home, but also abroad do we see what happens when the American public gets duped into electing a radically liberal neophyte to the most difficult and important executive position in the world. While the mainstream media concentrates on the release of five Taliban commanders for one insignificant American deserter Iraq is falling into the hands of al-qaeda affiliated militants, losing key cities on a daily basis.
The Obama administration has repeatedly shown its inability to handle demanding situations that require negotiating skill, not only at home with the GOP but also abroad with foreign governments. Instead of putting an effective compromise in place with Iraq for US troops to remain and assist the Iraqi military, Obama was concerned only with getting out. Now we see the situation there going to h*ll on roller skates. The same scenario is repeating itself before our very eyes in Afghanistan.
The Obama administration has repeatedly shown its inability to handle demanding situations that require negotiating skill, not only at home with the GOP but also abroad with foreign governments. Instead of putting an effective compromise in place with Iraq for US troops to remain and assist the Iraqi military, Obama was concerned only with getting out. Now we see the situation there going to h*ll on roller skates. The same scenario is repeating itself before our very eyes in Afghanistan.
The al Qaeda affiliate known as ISIS stormed and occupied the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, population 1.8 million and not far from Turkey, Syria and Iran. It took control of the airport, government buildings, and reportedly looted some $430 million from Mosul's banks. ISIS owns Mosul.
Iraq's army in tatters, ISIS rolled south Wednesday and took the city of Tikrit. It is plausible that this Islamic wave will next take Samarra and then move on to Baghdad, about 125 miles south of Tikrit. They will surely stop outside Baghdad, but that would be enough. Iraq will be lost...
Dan Henninger: While Obama Fiddles - WSJ
U.S. Said to Rebuff Iraqi Request to Strike Militants
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITTJUNE 11, 2014
WASHINGTON — As the threat from Sunni militants in western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials.
But Iraq’s appeals for a military response have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was over when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.
The swift capture of Mosul by militants aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has underscored how the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have converged into one widening regional insurgency with fighters coursing back and forth through the porous border between the two countries. But it has also called attention to the limits the White House has imposed on the use of American power in an increasingly violent and volatile region...
James M. Dubik, a retired Army lieutenant general who oversaw the training of the Iraqi army during the surge, summed it up this way: “We should fly some of our manned and unmanned aircraft and put advisers into Iraq that can help the Iraqi Army plan and execute a proper defense, then help them transition to a counter offensive."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/w...-officials-say.html?hp&assetType=nyt_now&_r=1