Did President Obama Throw Iraq Away?

COMMENTARY | It did not take long after the last American troops departed from Iraq for the country to start spinning out of control. According to AFP, a wave of terrorist bombings in Baghdad has left over 60 dead and about 200 wounded.

In the meantime, sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis have mounted. Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi is on the run with an arrest warrant for running a death squad issued by Shiite President Nuri al-Maliki. In turn Hashemi is accusing Maliki of acting as high handed as Saddam Hussein.

Peter Brooks of the Heritage Foundation, writing in the New York Post, sees things as only worsening. Maliki will continue to expand his political strength, shattering the delicate power-sharing arrangement forged with the help of the United States. The Sunnis, so instrumental in helping to crush the insurgency during President Bush’s surge, will return to terrorism to oppose Maliki’s power grab. The Kurds in the north, seeing the handwriting on the wall, will seek more autonomy. Iran, seeking an opportunity, will expand its influence in an increasingly Shiite dominated Iraq.

It is no secret that the United States military wanted a small force of about 20,000 to remain in Iraq to provide stability and to continue to train and support Iraqi security forces. That view was echoed by presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently, according to AFP. But the American military was overruled by the Obama administration, which wanted to fulfill a campaign promise to end American military involvement in Iraq.

Thus far Obama seems to be on the right side politically. Politico is reporting that 78 percent of the American people support President Obama’s decision to withdraw American troops from Iraq. Americans have been weary of the meat grinder that Iraq had become for quite some time.

On the other hand, public opinion can be fickle. If chaos descends upon Iraq and/or Iran makes it a client state, the question will inevitably arise about what all that blood and treasure was for? No doubt Obama supporters will maintain that Iraq was doomed no matter what the United States did.

Still, one cannot but help have the impression that President Obama, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, did not so much toss Iraq idly aside but hurtled it away with great force. This may come back to haunt him as the election campaign proceeds.

Sources: Iraq talks cancelled after deadly bombings, Mohamad Ali Harissi, AFP, Dec 23, 2011

Behind Iraq’s chaos, Peter Brooks, New York Post, Dec 22, 2011

Republicans slam Obama over Iraq withdrawal, Oliver Knox, AFP, Dec 18, 2011

Poll: Big support for Obama on Iraq, Mackenzie Weinger, Politico, Dec 21, 2011


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