Thanks to Barack Obama – Al-Qaeda Controls More Territory Than Anytime in History

Obama is a petri dish with an enriched growth culture for terrorism.

@Greg: No, Greg.
This is on Obama.
Maliki didn’t take office under Bush.
It was 2010.
When Maliki took office Iraq had a coalition gov’t including Shia and Sunni.
But, with a wimpy US President who would rather play golf and ”lead from behind,” Maliki purged all the Sunnis from his gov’t.
Obama could have been strong and stopped him.
As a result of Obama’s wimpiness and his announcement that we were leaving by “X” date, all those charismatic and extreme Sunni leaders came back into Iraq.
Syrian fighters came in, too.
Obama gave no assistance to Maliki so Maliki turned to Shia charismatic extremists like Muqtada al Sadr.
Now it is a battle for which extremist sect gets to be leader.
But for Obama there is no plus side because Iraq is lost to any chance of moderate leadership.
Just like Libya.
Just like Syria.
However, I’m not all that sure Obama didn’t want this.
He seems to kill (or capture for civilian trial) only those few small potatoes Islamists.
Like playing ”Whack-a-Mole,” instead of fighting a war so as to win it.

Actually, the intelligence community had warned the Bush administration of such possibilities before we had even invaded Iraq:

The Intelligence Community assessed prior to the war that al Qa’ida probably would see an opportunity to accelerate its operational tempo and increase terrorist attacks during and after a US-Iraq war. In January 2003, the Intelligence Community stated that al-Qa’ida “probably would try to exploit any postwar transition in Iraq by replicating the tactics it has used in Afghanistan during the past year to mount hit-and-run operations against US personnel. According to the Intelligence Community, “some militant Islamists in Iraq might benefit from increases in funding and popular support and could choose to conduct terrorist attacks against US forces in Iraq.” The Intelligence Community assessed that, “If Baghdad were unable to exert control over the Iraqi countryside, al-Qai’da or other terrorist groups could operate from remote areas.” The Intelligence Community assessed that “To the extent that a new Iraqi government effectively controlled its territory, especially in northern Iraq, and was friendlier to US interests and backed by US military power, al-Qa’ida’s freedom of movement inside Iraq almost certainly would be hampered. If al-Qa’ida’ mobilized significant resources to combat a US presence in Iraq, it could, at least in the near term, reduce its overall capability to strike elsewhere.” The Intelligence Community noted that “Use of violence by competing factions in Iraq against each other or the United States – Sunni against Shia; Kurd against Kurd; Kurd against Arab; any against the United states – probably also would encourage terrorist groups to take advantage of a volatile security environment to launch attacks within Iraq.” Additionally, rogue ex-regime elements “could forge an alliance with existing terrorist organizations or act independently to wage guerilla warfare against the new government or Coalition forces.”

That’s from page 7 of The Report on Prewar Intelligence Assessments about Postwar Iraq. The possible consequences of an invasion that the intelligence community warned of before the fact have proved to be dead on target.

Also note what the intelligence community had said about Domestic Conflict prior to the invasion. It’s at the bottom of page 8. They warned that divisions were so deep in Iraqi society that only an occupying power could prevent violent internal conflict. In other words, if I may paraphrase, things would be likely to go totally to hell once we left.

Would the American people have supported the invasion, had that warning been shared? And what was Obama being saddled with, when the S.O.F.A. was finalized only a month before he was sworn in as President? The timetable dropped the predicted consequences of the withdrawal squarely in his lap.