Majority of Iraqis Oppose Obama’s Withdrawal
The victory of Iyad Allawi shows that one of the primary concerns of Iraqis is preventing their country from being dominated by Iran, whose regime is often blamed for the sectarian strife they are all fed up with. Yet there was no reassurance on this issue given in President Obama’s speech. Indeed, Iran was not even mentioned. Neither was Syria, whose officials Iraq sought to prosecute in a UN tribunal until it became clear the Obama administration wouldn’t support it.
The recent statement by Vice President Biden that Iranian influence in Iraq is “minimal,” followed by Ambassador Jeffrey’s remarks to the same effect (while at the same time estimating that one-fourth of U.S. casualties have been due to Iranian-backed groups) will only further convince Iraqis that the U.S. either doesn’t get it or doesn’t care. The Obama administration is trying to pre-empt critics who will say their policies are throwing Iraq to the wolves but in so doing will convince Iraqis that that’s exactly what’s happening.
Allawi and Prime Minister al-Maliki have unfortunately been unable to come to a compromise for a unity government as both want to be prime minister. Allawi now says that the U.S. is not supporting him because the Obama administration wants a government that is acceptable to Iran. Despite public reassurances to the contrary, this is an admission that Iran has significant say over Iraq’s future and a sign that the Obama administration naively believes our interests coincide and some sort of understanding can be reached.
The president believes taking a softer tone towards Iran will build support for the U.S. and improve our image, but Iraq is one place where it won’t work. It is fortunate that Iraqi public opinion has turned around in our favor, but if we are seen as leaving hastily and submitting to Iran, it will quickly reverse back to where it was. It was wise of President Obama to reiterate his commitment to the future of Iraq, but Iraqis will not believe him if they see Iran being catered to or an Iraqi government come to power that is hamstrung by Iran’s proxies. They will again see the U.S. as the party responsible for their desires being dashed; as being too uncaring, naïve, and/or weak to protect them from an Iran that is responsible for spilling both American and Iraqi blood. And they’ll be right.
It’s Bush’s fault! No, wait. The Iraqis get that the surge worked. Poll numbers were up in 2008 with our nascent victory there.
The Iraqis are not confused. They KNOW that it is Obama policies which are making the situation uncertain. They KNOW that it is on Obama, period, because he is the U.S. President, not Bush.
Which Obama policies are making the situation uncertain? And besides, I thought y’all said Bush won the war. No?
It is possible to win a war and then lose the peace. Viz. Vietnam.
Did we win in Vietnam?
Yes, the main purpose of the Vietnam war was to stop the domino theory. This was accomplished.
Although we should all be a little cautious about any public poll taken in Iraq, it’s nice to know you’re wanted. Or, at least, that your troops are wanted to maintain the peace. The problem is, the Iraqis have to do this on their own. The Iraqis remind me of teenagers. They want to be independent and hate their parents, but would be crushed and terrified if their parents cut them loose and made them fend for themselves. I believe we should maintain a presence in Iraq for many years to come, just like we have in South Korea, Japan, and Germany. Iraq is located in a critical part of the world and insuring its stability will also bring some stability to the area, not to mention assist us in obtaining another reliable source of oil. So long as American troops are NOT getting killed while garrisoning Iraq, it would be foolish to simply leave and risk the country’s stability.
We must remember that Iraq is NOT Afghanistan. Iraq is a much more modern and vital nation when compared to Afghanistan and is much more capable of acting as a better ally against Iran than Afghanistan is. We may not like it, but part of being a global power is maintaining a presence in strategically vital nations all over the world. Sometimes it’s expensive being the world’s sole superpower, but, in the long run, its benefits do outweigh its costs.
Do you know what “overstaying your welcome” means?
True, but if the Iraqis are convinced that their freedom depends on us staying, they’ll ask us to stay. But that’s a big “if.”
LS 46, I agree with your eval and if we bail as obama and many want to do Iraq and the area will simply fall back into the disaster area that it was before this all started, perhaps even worse and a bigger threat to the world due to extreme instability.
Most muslim states in that area fear Iran, the Iranians have a long history of domination in that area. Staying in Iraq would give us a sold base from which to help Iraq and work to frustrate the muslims efforts at world domination and contain Iran and also proving that America is not the devil, though the real problem is that we are not muslim.
Stability would go a long ways towards stabilizing that region and allowing us to better control the radical muslims.
I was all for the resumption of hostilities against Sadam Hussein, but I’m all for a withdraw. The South Vietnamese wanted us to stat in South Vietnam and fight their battles for them too. Had they been a little more reciprocating, the relationship might be ending on a more promising note. All I can say to the Iraqi people now is… step up!
I too fear Iran’s action following our removal. I fear even more the leftist propaganda I’ll here when Iran attempts to assert its dominance, possibly by extreme force, and they will all say “it’s Bush’s fault.” However, we cannot mollycoddle them forever.
I agree with the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq….including all of that whole theater. My memories of my nine months (2 TDY’s DaNang,1 NhaTrang) in South Vietnam recall the impression that we were being “used” by our Vietnamese hosts as much as we were fighting that communist infiltration.
At best, the Iraqi’s had a very fragile economy. Our mere presence, exacerbated by our surge-ing (if you will) influx of green dollars have probably changed the previously unstable balances there and in Afghanistan forever, and that Bank in Kabul, intertwined with the everlastingly popular poppy culture, are just symptoms of more upheaval in that area of artificially drawn borders and overlapping sectarian barbarism. Borders there are meaninglessly porous.
Asia is (I say at every opportunity) a vast overpopulated poverty riddled area…sponge-like…super absorbent.
Our America simply doesn’t have the resources needed to effect any lasting changes. Let’s fight this Muslim/Islamic war from offshore. We’ve the proven means. Let’s come home, now.
RIK,
The ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) was doing quite well holding the NVA at bay until the Democrat Congress in 1974 (the Watergate class) cut off all support. When that happened the NVA knew the ARVN could not stop them and they pretty much walked into the country and took it over. It was doubtless of great aid to their effort that many South Vietnamese knew when the US Congress cut off aid they were doomed and thus sought to minimize their involvement in defending the country.
The risk in Iraq is not so much that combat troops have been withdrawn, as long as we have a substantial presence there in support and training forces,but that Obama or some successor will cut and run if things get dicey.
RIK,
The ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) was doing quite well holding the NVA at bay until the Democrat Congress in 1974 (the Watergate class) cut off all support. When that happened the NVA knew the ARVN could not stop them and they pretty much walked into the country and took it over. It was doubtless of great aid to their effort that many South Vietnamese knew when the US Congress cut off aid they were doomed and thus sought to minimize their involvement in defending the country.
The risk in Iraq is not so much that combat troops have been withdrawn, as long as we have a substantial presence there in support and training forces, but that Obama or some successor will cut and run if things get dicey.
Yes, yes. To SongDog you listen.
Seriously, that’s how it happened. Modern histories on the Vietnam War focus on the earliest years of the conflict, viewing the Tet offensive as the conclusion. Why would they do such a thing? Well, LBJ was still in office when official policy began to ponder methods of pulling out rather than winning. Nixon did not make any friends working outside of Congress and media spotlight. The war went well under his direction precisely because of his shifty ways. Watergate occurs, Ford enters office virtually powerless thanks to the legacy of his predecessor, and Vietnam losses all support it was once promised.
I will note that history never repeats itself, it merely rhymes. That said, the future of Iraq should be of great concern in Washington.
The average Iraqi has probably learned that American soldiers believe in freedom of speech and freedom of religion and will not kill them for what they say or believe.
Rik – I, too, was all for the resumption of hostilities against Saddam Hussein. Anyone who did not have “his hate George W. Bush head” in the sand could see that Operation Iraqi Freedom was justified by the thousands of Iraqi violations of the Operation Desert Storm cease fire.
If you want to blame someone other than Saddam Hussein for the war in Iraq, how about blaming George H. W. Bush and Collin Powell for stopping the slaughter of the Iraqi Republican Guard and not going to Baghdad after Saddam Hussein, and forcing the Iraqi people to endure him and his thugs for another 11 years!
Yeah, it was all George H. W. Bush and Collin Powell’s fault … for following the U.N.-defined limits of operations in Iraq in 1991.
Doesn’t anyone ever actually pay attention to fact?
Love the name. Agree completely. Although I the poster above is right, in a legalistic sense, that we followed the prescribed UN guidelines. Another reason to withdraw from the UN. I was in Bahrain and Kuwait, and on a couple of ships in the Gulf during desert storm. I couldn’t agree more that whether it was us, or someone other western nation, Saddam Hussein should have been removed for his actions in Kuwait. Its like telling Hitler after we pushed Germany out of France that they he could stay in power, under some stupid sanctions that a couple or our allies were secretly violating for cheap oil. I’m looking at you Black Jacques Chirac.
Freedom isn’t free. Except when Americans expend their blood and treasure for you. And yes some Iraqis have stepped up – notably the Kurds. It will be 100 years before we know if 4000 of our sons (and $ billions) were worth it. Now it’s time for Iraqis to pay up. They’ve got oil which means they’ve got $. They’ve got improve infrastructure and trained soldiers and police. Hell, they’ve got it way better than the Japanese or Germans did after WW2 or the Koreans did. And yeah they’ve got a bad neighbor in Iran. We’re not completely gone away either. Quit asking for more.
Obama truly has thrown Iraq under the bus in order to appease the mullahs.
The tepid response to the uprisings in Tehran and other cities and his lack of response to the power up of a nuclear plant show either an agreement,or
when it comes to foreign policy,his brain is in neutral gear.
No blood for oil! Oh, wait….
Will someone please drive a vampire stake into the heart of the Leftist mantra that Americans are imperialist. Americans are the true revolutionaries. It’s some conquering army when the locals desire the ‘foreigners’ to stay more than the ‘foreigners’ want to stay.
And for one who lived through the history, after we withdrew from Vietnam, the South Vietnamese were able to repeal one major invasion from the North. Then the Democratic Party controlled Congress killed all support in funding and equipment and assistance to the South. The second invasion after that little stab in the back succeeded. Sensing the opportunity, things around the world got more than a little complicated as adversaries took advantage of the weaknesses Washington displayed for which we are still dealing with.
So, Rik, when can we pull our troops out of Europe and Japan which have been economically rebuilt and stable for going on for three generations.
I was there as recently as last November. We have turned Al Asad and Balad into world class air bases. That is the most viable strategic area we can be in the world today. We were virtually untouchable because of our security. We spent billions there, and Obama is going to piss it all away because he is either too stupid or too devious to see the big picture. It sickens me to my core. Viet Nam did not have to be lost either. Congress pulled the rug out from under them. The same stupid hippie liberals are driving our country into the ditch and smoking dope and celebrating as they go.
Welcome to Amerika.
There must have been many, who like myself (and Prime Minister Howard of Australia, maybe a few million others), predicted that in 2008 that Obama would search for a way to achieve defeat in Iraq; at the very least to justify his opposition to the war. His ego could never sustain the knowledge that he had been wrong and Bush right about such a high image issue. A defeat in Iraq falls enables him to appear in a prime-time speech bewailing Bush’s stupidity while proclaiming his prescience, thereby providing a huge psychological payoff to his self-perception. After-all, his entire presidency revolves around two poles, his narcissism, and doing as much damage to a country he clearly hates (the US).
At this point who really cares what the Iraqi’s want. I want them to either stop fighting among themselves and deal with the disruptive elements in their country, or rot. I fail to understand why we care what they want. If we won( granted a big if) what we want is the only thing that matters. The USA should tell them that they now have X time to get their act together because after x date they are on their own to succeed of fail.
…..” 11. Forgotten Man
At this point who really cares what the Iraqi’s want.”.
May I add that I don’t care “one jot or tittle”…with apologies to the O.T. author/scribe…what the whole rest of the world thinks about America?
Those nauseus pictures of Obama kowtowing to the Saudi king (who needs our money for his oil as much as we’re addicted to his oil) and the Japanese emperor (who has needed our U.S taxpayer provided defense umbrella for more than half a century) are vignettes of what we Americans should halt, along with the USAID which has seemingly become an entitlement among the third world’s extended palms. This USAID cash which is accepted with tight smiles and snide, snarky comments about us behind our backs.
It’s futile for us Americans to think we can effect lasting changes in the centuries-old barbarous practices and sectarian rivalry in that forsaken part of Central/West Asia. We simply can’t print enough money to make a difference. “Make no mistake”, the world is willing to hold our coats…..and stand by.
I sort of think what the Iraqi’s really want is more of those lovely American dollars to rebuild their sandpile of a country. They’re willing to allow us to spend a little more American blood while doing it, but basically they want 24/7 air conditioning, paved roads and a country-wide irrigation sprinkler system, and they want America to pay for it.
And to do those things in the most cost ineffective way, allowing for maximum opportunities to siphon off bits and pieces of the money flow along the way.
I’m astonished Maliki is still in Baghdad. The man must be a billionaire by now.
Isn’t the muslim mindset it’s better to spill infidel blood than muslim blood? If the Americans are willing to die for them, how can the Iraqis turn down a deal like that?
Why would you give them any credence? Two minutes after we’re gone, they’ll be back to hating us openly anyway.
The Iraqis know our soldiers better than our President knows our soldiers.
It is way past time that America stop trying to save Islam from its self. Time for Muslim Islamic believers to step in and free themselves from the Islamic extremist and by the way in their own countries.
Having grown up a military brat, bases were NEEDED in countries around the world TO PROTECT OUR OWN SOIL FROM WAR. Now, hundreds of those bases have been closed since about 1975? 80? AND AMERICA IS OBVIOUSLY UNPROTECTED.
YOU BET THIS MAKES ME NERVOUS. I liked having SAC (Strategic Air Command) Bases to keep us safe, but hell, now, WE DON’T EVEN HAVE BASES ON AMERICA’S BORDERS……LET ‘EM ALL IN.
I’m glad I’m on my way out….too sad to see what this fraudulent President has SO SWIFTLY done to this country. GOD BLESS AMERICA.
Then the Arabs and Muslims have a new reason to hate the US – this time for leaving Iraq.
I would much rather they fear us than like us. Muslims as a whole aren’t stupid. They respect strength and attack weakness. There are many examples of this in just the last 30 years. When dealing with Arab Muslims strength and fear are much more effective then kisses and hugs.
Actually, dead works pretty well also. Kill enough of them and they will settle down out of fear. Remember, they are scared spitless of Iran, all of them, why, because Iran has ruled most of those countries at one time or another and they are brutal, the muslim way.
Obama doesn’t give a rat’s patootie about the Iraqis- he cares about what will get him re-elected (unless things are so bad, he goes the LBJ route). So Iraq be damned- Johnny’s marching home by autumn 2012, ready or not.
I don’t know what an Iraqi is. There are three clear ethnic groups or ethnic/religious groups in the place called Iraq, and the divisions are also reflected in geography. (We should also not forget the Chaldean Christians, but since they don’t count in the political sphere because of attrition and Muslim attitudes, they can’t truly be numbered.) The Kurds function now as an autonomy, and perhaps a center of gravity for the many millions of Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria.
The Shiites are Iraqis if Iraq is centered around Shiite history and shrines, the south, etc. They and the Sunnis have a very bitter history, complicated by Iranian-Arab rivalries, which make the Shiites less than ‘Arab’ and also always under stress from the Sunnis and their Saudi friends. The Shiite have also not forgotten the Sunni support for Saddam.
The Sunnis see themselves as the only true Iraqis, and according to a fairly objective definition, if being Arab and Sunni – that is, if ‘Arab’ means a Sunni-believing, Arab-speaking Middle Easterner, and it does in many ways – then they will forever see themselves as the rightful rulers of Iraq. They are, many of them, appalled by the rise of Shiites and Kurds, and afraid as well.
The riddle of Iraq is that it can only have a shot at a unified future after a lot of ‘healing’, which will only occur if the US sticks around. The US, no matter the President, is not going to stick around for a decade or two, which might be enough. So it will all probably revert to Arab-Muslim political form soon enough.
Then the question ‘is it worth more American lives’ is quite pertinent. To see the Iraq issue – or Afghanistan – only through the lens of ‘I’m against whatever Obama is for’ misses at least some of the point. There are much better reasons to reject the guy as President than this issue.
betty knows nothing about vietnam
in fact we never lost a major battle and the bodycounts were lopsided so badly – in our favor – that talking about the numbers are a waste of time
Not surprising that many Iraqis agree that an army funded by other people’s taxes is preferable to one supported by one’s own taxes.
Iraq, with it’s democratic system in an infancy, is struggling to select new political leadership. And the islamic jihadists are starting to kill lots of innocent people again. So all the amazing progress we’ve made in Iraq ever since the Bush approved troop surge is at risk of reversing. And what is the leftist Hussein regime doing? Trying to retreat as quickly as possible in order to appease his pro-surrender left wing base. Yet another example of the neo-communist Hussein regime caring more about his poll numbers than our national security and the well being of millions of Iraqi civilians. I hope President Hussein gets impeached as soon as possible.
See that’s the mistake people make.. America is not the “WORLD POLICE”.. It’s not America job to put on a cape and aid and assist everyone…Why did no other country go into Iraq to assist America? Besides England.. but that was political.. “You know those english bankers..”
Russia, China, France, Germany, Italy.. You name it.. Nobody assisted, and everyone know about Iraq.. So why America?
I was deployed to Iraq.. and I don’t know what victory feels like, because I don’t know what was won..
The troops shouldn’t have been sent in the first place.. We went over on false pretence.. Looking for something that isn’t there.. (weapons) These weapons didn’t exist.. believe me I looked.. I spent 3 months looking..
So what exactly is the reason to be there?.. If that’s the case, need to send some troops to Africa.. Send some to Japan.. South America.. It’s pointless..
Iraq was not a war.
It was mass confusion cause by individuals with there own agendas, risking the lives of others..
Marsh, you give me a reason we should be there..You say you want Obama impeach why? because he is pulling troops out?
You tell me what the war was about and why we were there? Keep in mind when you answer that I was there in the middle of it.. Why was the initial attack on Iraq? Don’t say because of 9/11 because you are false..
Example: That’s like if a Chinese man drives his car into your home.. You don’t exactly know who this man is or who did it, you only know he is chinese.. Then you attack China..
So tell me why, what is the war about.. don’t tell me something your read or saw on the news, tell me what “you” know.. ?
First off, stop lying about serving in Iraq, you leftist douche. Secondly, sure I can give you several reasons as to why we removed the Saddam regime. Why should I have to waste my time doing so? I don’t know. It should be quite obvious to anyone who listened to even a single speech from Bush on Iraq as to why we removed the deprayed Hussein regime. But I guess you leftists are quite slow so maybe you need yet another reminding.
- On the grounds of humanitarism alone, the removal of the Hussein regime was more than justified. He murdered roughly 1 million of his own citizens. Not in a civil or foreign war, but in deliberate acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing against kurds, shi’ites and even fellow sunni’s. Did you see any of the ~hundreds~ of the unmarked mass graves in your supposed hunt for WMDs? They were sprinkled all throughout the country afterall, so they’d be pretty hard to miss.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_graves_in_Iraq
http://www.9neesan.com/massgraves/
He even used, you guessed it, WMDs (you know, that giant Boosh lie?) in his genocide against the kurds in the north. Entire towns were simply wiped off the face of the Earth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvfT7zCW7ts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag29b6OuQyM
^Here’s some ingrate kurds throwing rocks at our troops for brutally invading and destroying their country. You were probably there too right?
And aren’t you leftists “huge fans” of the plight of indigenous people’s? Well, guess what? He made what we did to the “Native” Americans look like a tea party. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ancient marsh arabs were systematically ethnically cleansed from the literal garden of eden. And now we’re spending tons of dough to restore them. How evil of us! Must have been a Booosh idea!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov2X7plWMkA
And oh yeah, he was also a fascist dictator last time I checked who kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered people like it was a perfectly normal every-day affair. His regime henchmen also used to execute people for simply owning a salelite dish since they were illegal. Access to outside information makes running a barbaric police state a lot harder afterall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JojVRTbauIU
As you can see, the list of gross human rights abuses in Iraq under the Hussein regime simply go and on. So all you leftist retards who try to protray Iraq as a nice and peaceful place for the “American Neo-Nazis” showed up, need to sit the F down.
Now, if a European country did this, would that not be justifcation enough for the entire Western world to mobolize and overthrow this evil Neo-Nazi regime as soon as possible? But I guess since Iraqi’s are arabs then we shouldn’t hold them to our own standards. They’re savages afterall and just acting like savages do, amirite?
- The Hussein regime DID indeed support terrorism.
http://www.husseinandterror.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_Al-Qaeda#2008_Pentagon_report
- Removing the Saddam regime and helping to establish a democracy could have a long term positive modernizing influence on the region and in the “muslim world”, which is benefecial to our national and global interests for obvious reasons.
But back to my original point. How dare you anti-war leftists try to pretend to be Iraqi War veterans and then lecture those of us who supported the overthrow of the Hussein regime? Let’s take your “suggestions” and world view to their logical ends shall we if we were indeed to follow your “council”.
- The country of Kuwait, a member of the UN and arab league, would simply no longer exist. It would now be part of Saddam’s empire and under his boot. As a result he’d now control a huge percentage of the world’s oil supply which he could then use to further finance his conquest across the entire region – including Saudi Arabia if you can remember back to the early 1990s of the news reports of Hussein’s growing tank divisions along the Saudi border.
- Saddam Hussein, and his depraved sons, would still be firm control of Iraq. And the corrupt UN sancuations that you leftists said were working like a charm would have killed millions of more Iraqi’s by now while UN cronies continued to smuggle millions of dollars for themselves out of it.
You anti-war activists are the ones who have the explaining to do, not us.
And oh yeah, as to ~your~ lies that the Bush administration lied about WMDs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5p-qIq32m8
Enjoy.
Marsh, first of all, how dare you tell me I lie about serving my country!? That remark right there makes it evident that you can care less. I was deployed to Iraq, Kuwait, Kossovo and Afganistan.. You sit here behind your computer and I was there and you tell me I lie.
Where did you serve? You call me all these political names.. I am simply a Human.. I know what my missions where and I know the outcome.. For your ignorance I will leave my rank out of this because you evidently don’t know me..
But let me enlighten you.. They are murdering citizens in Africa and other countries, why just go to the middle east? America is the “WORLD POLICE”, right? It’s unfortunate that I cannot give you exact details. But I will say this, America supports terrorism as well.. America is not a christian God-fearing society…
How do I pretend..? You don’t know if I lost my arm or legs in Iraq and you dare to say these things over a computer.. If someone says they served, your response should simply be thank you…How un-American are you?
Bush was fighting for personal reasons and if you say it isn’t so, then you are already programmed for the agenda to come.. It’s called MIND CONTROL..And many human lives are expendable for those whoms agenda is the primary goal.
It’s controlling you and you don’t know it’s happening.. You are ranting due to Obama’s color, nothing more..
You are being brainwashed. As the Bible states, it says respect and obey the government. I have no control over who the president is or what he does. I can only respect the president and the government. But I don’t have to be brainwashed and put up under mind control.
If you step back and look at the world, there is a GRAND scheme of evil. This evil has nothing to do with whom the president is or isn’t. It has to do with the AGENDA.
You cannot say everything feels normal….For this AGENDA to work ‘they’ look for social convulsions on a global scale followed by depressions as a softening up technique for bigger things to come. It’s merely about power, but how do you get complete power? You have to control the “PEOPLE” as a whole.
You will be easy.. to program.. Trauma Based Mind-Control is the easiest to apply..Since man began “individuals” have tried to influence other men or women to his way of thinking…
I challenge you to take your post copy it and save it, refer back to it from time to time.. Look at the things you said.. and see if in a few years you change your mind about the UN…
It’s funny.. One minute you people are like “Kill The Muslims”.. Then the next you are like “Oh, No We Have To Help Them..” Whatever Obama is for you are against.. That’s the way it goes?
Funny.. Hahahah.