September 16, 2013

From the Iraqi Pullout to the Disaster in Syria

Democrats jeered when John McCain told a New Hampshire audience during the 2008 presidential campaign that he would be glad to see US troops remain in Iraq for decades, even a century, once the war was over. “We’ve been in Japan for 60 years [and] in South Korea for 50 years,” he said. A similar long-term stay in a postwar Iraq, buttressing allies and providing stability in a volatile region, would “be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.”

Democrats jeered when John McCain told a New Hampshire audience during the 2008 presidential campaign that he would be glad to see US troops remain in Iraq for decades, even a century, once the war was over. “We’ve been in Japan for 60 years [and] in South Korea for 50 years,” he said. A similar long-term stay in a postwar Iraq, buttressing allies and providing stability in a volatile region, would “be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.”

McCain’s political foes had a field day with that. Though he had plainly been speaking of a friendly peacetime presence, Democrats hammered him as an insatiable warmonger. Then-Senator Barack Obama claimed the Arizona Republican was “willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq.” Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, declared: “McCain’s strategy is a war without end.” In a TV ad aired by MoveOn.org, a new mother, playing with her baby boy, told McCain that if he was counting on using her little Alex as cannon fodder in Iraq, “you can’t have him.”

Yet McCain was right. Having won a difficult war in Iraq, the United States should have settled in for the long haul, just as we did in Japan, Germany, Italy, and South Korea, where tens of thousands of American troops remain to this day. Instead President Obama pulled the troops out, as he had always made clear he would. Iraq’s fragile constitutional democracy, so hard-won, was left to fend for itself. Al Qaeda in Iraq, all but wiped out, gained a new lease on life. Now a new generation of Americans, including young Alex, is learning that the loss of US influence makes the world a more menacing place.

We are nearly five years into a presidency whose foreign policy is driven by the conviction that America’s profile in the world, above all the Muslim world, must be lowered. “One of the things I intend to do as president is restore America’s standing in the world,” Obama vowed as he pursued the presidency in 2008. Abandoning Iraq wasn’t the way to do it. America’s standing in the world has reached a new low. So low that even Bashar al-Assad can thumb his nose at an explicit presidential “red line” – then laugh as Vladimir Putin effortlessly suckers Washington into doing nothing about it.

George W. Bush made plenty of mistakes, but he understood the difference between leading and “leading from behind.” When he went to Congress for authorization to remove Saddam Hussein from power, he got it. When he told Saddam to leave Iraq or be forcibly overthrown, he made good his threat. When he explained the need for military action, he didn’t need to reassure Americans that their commander-in-chief “doesn’t do pinpricks.”

All American presidents engender resentment and opposition on the world stage. It goes with the job of leading the world’s superpower. Yet Obama was certain that the world couldn’t help but adore an America wise enough to elevate him to the White House. From his earliest days as a presidential candidate, Obama had argued that Bush had eroded America’s international status by waging a “dumb” war in Iraq and showing insufficient respect for diplomatic engagement. He would reverse course, he promised voters, and that would make everything better. “The world will have confidence that I am listening to them, and that our future and our security is tied up with our ability to work with other countries.”

But what the world has learned from listening to Obama is that he confuses moral preening with effective leadership. That he is deeply uncomfortable with America’s military preeminence. That it’s not hard to call the bluff of this president who says he doesn’t bluff.

And that he still doesn’t realize how much harm was set in motion by the wholesale withdrawal from Iraq. As the US military walked away, internal Iraqi politics grew more authoritarian. Sunni terrorism revived. Al-Qaeda in Iraq started sending offshoots into Syria. Iraqi Shiites, meanwhile, lost their American buffer against Iran. “If American airpower were still in Baghdad,” writes Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “Tehran could not resupply Syria and Lebanese Hezbollah by air, and the Assad regime would lose the two resources most critical to its survival.”

A long-term US presence could have been such a blessing for postwar Iraq, nurturing Arab democracy and moderation, giving peace and prosperity the chance they were given in Germany, Japan, and Korea. Instead we walked away, undercutting our friends and our reputation, and leaving a vacuum the region’s worst brutes moved to fill.

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.