Today's outrageously outrageous Trumpism: 'Hillary Clinton killed hundreds of thousands of people with her stupidity.'
Doubtless she bears part of the blame for the precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, because her State Department failed in its attempts to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government. They tried, and they blew it. Partly the President is to blame, too, for not getting more directly and personally involved but accepting the 2011 withdrawal as a fait accompli.
On the other hand, if the Maliki government had behaved better, perhaps Iraq would have remained stable. If Assad hadn't touched off a major civil war next door, that would really have helped. And, of course, if we'd left Saddam in place only tens of thousand of people would have been killed by his brutal regime if the history of his reign is any indication.
She bears some responsibility, and it is the quality of guilt that it can be divided without being lessened.
So let's beat it down, as in a real estate negotiation, until it's "Okay, she's only 14% responsible for those deaths." I'll take that.
ReplyDeleteI've also seen arguments that Biden may be more at fault than any other single person for screwing up the hard-won stability after the surge and the Anbar Awakening; he was apparently the biggest supporter of keeping Maliki in charge even after Maliki had entirely disregarded parliamentary elections that went against him, and instead started purging his political opponents.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-we-stuck-with-maliki--and-lost-iraq/2014/07/03/0dd6a8a4-f7ec-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html
Without Maliki turning on the Sunni tribes in Anbar, there very well could be no ISIL today -- the tribes supposedly only first turned to ISIL for protection from Maliki after his betrayal, expecting that they could again force the jihadists out once the government in Baghdad was more conciliatory. Unfortunately for them, this time they forgot to bring a long enough spoon for dining with the Devil...
It is immensely depressing that leaving a tyrant in place is most likely better than what has happened.
ReplyDeleteSuiting for the American that thought Sarah Palin as VP was going to be a bomb waiting to happen, vis a vis Biden. They get what they deserve, after all. Although livestock aren't really asked what they like or don't like, that's not the point of a democracy.
ReplyDelete