In Iraq, Obama’s abandonment leads to Al Qaeda comeback

Despite the narrative you may have bought, here is the fact. America won the Iraq War under the leadership of George W. Bush and through the skill and courage of the U.S. Armed Forces. It took longer than we wanted, longer than we expected, but we won.

But we won World War I too. Dumb postwar policies squandered the win and led to something even worse in vanquished Germany - and an even more threatening and deadly second World War. Now, post-war policies that are not only dumb but willfully counter to the cause of freedom appear to be pissing away the gains we won for freedom in Iraq. CBS reports that Al Qaeda is making a comeback in a nation where it was once on the run, but only because America was committed to keeping it that way:

Al Qaeda has begun actively recruiting more young Iraqi men to take part in suicide missions after years of relying primarily on foreign volunteers, according to two intelligence officials. They said al-Baghdadi has issued orders calling for 50 attacks per week, which if achieved would mark a significant escalation. One of the officials estimated that al Qaeda now has at least 3,000 trained fighters in Iraq alone, including some 100 volunteers awaiting orders to carry out suicide missions. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to disclose intelligence information.

---

A study released this month by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said al Qaeda in Iraq has emerged as "an extremely vigorous, resilient, and capable organization" that can operate as far south as Iraq's Persian Gulf port of Basra. The group "has reconstituted as a professional military force capable of planning, training, resourcing and executing synchronized and complex attacks in Iraq," author Jessica Lewis added. The study found that al Qaeda was able to carry out 24 separate attacks involving waves of six or more car bombs on a single day during a one-year period that coincided with the terror group's "Breaking the Walls" campaign, which ended in July. It carried out eight separate prison attacks over the same period, ending with the complex, military-style assaults on two Baghdad-area prisons on July 21 that freed more than 500 inmates, many of them al Qaeda members. There is one primary reason this is happening. The U.S. had negotiating a status of forces agreement with Iraq, which would have kept U.S. forces as a presence there just as we are in more than 100 nations across the globe. But the U.S. and the Iraqis hit a sticking point over terms of immunity for U.S. forces against Iraqi prosecution for any number of things that can come up during a war, and rather than pursue an acceptable agreement on the issue, Obama used the snag as an excuse to abandon the agreement - and Iraq - completely. Condoleezza Rice was flabbergasted when the talks broke down in 2011, as she told Foreign Policy at the time:

Rice said that she didn't understand why the Obama administration was unable to reach an agreement on immunity with the Iraqis, considering that the previous SOFA granted immunity to U.S. soldiers and was passed overwhelmingly by the Iraqi parliament at the time. "We did manage to negotiate an immunity clause that was acceptable to the Iraqis and acceptable to the Pentagon. I don't know what happened in these negotiations," Rice said. Overall, Rice said that while the Iraqi Army is making progress, it still has flaws that U.S. forces could help remedy, and the wholesale withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq sends the wrong signal to the region. "They continue to need help on the counterterrorism side and it would have been a good message to Iran [to keep some U.S. forces there]," Rice said. "That would have been a preferable option."

Yes. It would. It would have helped to keep Al Qaeda at bay, stemmed the influence of Iran and given Iraq a better opportunity to emerge as a rare, reliable ally in that region of the world. But none of this was ever a priority to Obama. Because he disagreed with the war, he felt no inclination to protect the gains we won there. The strategic interests of the U.S., not to mention the security of the Iraqis, meant nothing to him. So he bailed on the status of forces talks, and we left, giving Al Qaeda the green light to rise up and do what it does. By the way, what do you think is going to happen in Afghanistan - which Obama used to think was the "good war" - when he follows through on his vow to pull out of there too?