Some - I for one - saw the Iraq War as a fool's errand from the out set. Those who pushed for war and manufactured false information with which to dupe the American public, including the delusional Chimperator Bush and megalomaniac Dick Cheney, ignored history and saw only what they wanted to see. Now, with America finally out of Iraq after squandering the lives of thousands of American lives and billions of dollars in tax dollars, what everyone sane should have foreseen is happening: the Taliban and religious extremists are resurgent and retaking portions of the country. The reality is that as horrible as he and his regime were, Saddam Hussein was the force that held these forces in check. Now Hussein and American forces are gone and we are about to reap what Bush/Cheney sowed. Here are excerpts from the Washington Post on the collapsing situation in Iraq:
An eruption of violence in Iraq is threatening to undo much of what U.S. troops appeared to have accomplished before they withdrew, putting the country’s stability on the line and raising the specter of a new civil war in a region already buckling under the strain of the conflict in Syria.
In the western Iraqi province of Anbar, Sunnis are in open revolt against the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Militants affiliated with al-Qaeda have taken advantage of the turmoil to raise their flag over areas from which they had been driven out by American troops, including the powerfully symbolic city of Fallujah, where U.S. forces fought their bloodiest battle since the Vietnam War.
On Monday, Maliki urged the people of Fallujah to expel al-Qaeda-affiliated militants to avert a full-on attack, echoing calls made by U.S. forces a decade ago when they warned residents to leave the city or suffer the consequences. . . . . Instead, most residents were trying to leave, packing their possessions into cars and fleeing in any direction they could, just as they did ahead of the U.S. assault on the city in November 2004.
[M]ost analysts and Iraqis say the problem is rooted, above all, in the Maliki administration’s failure to reach out to Sunnis and include them in the decision-making processes of the coalition government, thereby enhancing a sense of Sunni alienation from the authorities in Baghdad that began when U.S. troops invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003.
“Extra weapons and drones are not going to solve this problem. In fact, they will make it worse, because it will encourage Maliki to believe there is a military solution to this problem, and that is what perpetuates civil wars,” said Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution in Washington.
The Iraqi army, demoralized and running short of supplies, has proved unable to dislodge the militants, and the ad hoc tribal militias confronting them lack weapons and ammunition, said retired Brig. Gen. Hassan Dulaimi, a former deputy police chief in Ramadi who is working with the tribal forces battling the al-Qaeda fighters.
Since 2011, the war in neighboring Syria has compounded security troubles in Iraq by creating an atmosphere of lawlessness that has allowed al-Qaeda space to organize, train and recruit just across the border. In April, the group’s Iraq affiliate renamed itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, signaling its expanded ambitions and reach, and it has since redoubled its efforts, seizing territory in Syria and embarking on an intensified campaign of bombings against mostly Shiite targets in Iraq.
The situation is a disaster - a disaster brought to us by the Bush/Cheney regime and Congressional Republicans who rubber stamped anything and everything Bush/Cheney asked for.
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