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Wishing for a happy ending doesn’t make it happen. Obama has only just realized his strategic error in total disengagement when exiting Iraq. Now the Iraqi army is folding like a bad poker hand and there is little to nothing that can be done to shape events. Hopefully he won’t do some feel good thing like sending a few troops and dropping a few bombs at this point. Why risk more American lives in an impossible situation?
"Relief Over U.S. Exit From Iraq Fades as Reality Overtakes Hope
By PETER BAKERJUNE 22, 2014
WASHINGTON — Standing in Al Faw palace in Baghdad, surrounded by an artificial lake and the ragged remnants of eight years of war, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. felt a surge of emotion on that day in December 2011.
He had gone to Iraq to note the end of an era, the departure of American troops from a country that had cost his own so much. Ebullient, he praised the troops, congratulated the generals, wished Iraqi leaders good luck and calledPresident Obama to share his excitement.
“All I’ve said about this job, I take it back,” Mr. Biden later recalled telling Mr. Obama. “Thank you for giving me the chance to end this goddamn war.”
“Joe,” he remembered the president responding, “I’m glad you got to do it.”
For two men who had run for office on the promise of getting out of Iraq, it seemed like a moment of validation. But that moment has proved achingly ephemeral. It was not the end of the war or even the end of their involvement.
Two and a half years later, Mr. Obama has ordered up to 300 Special Operations members back to Iraq and may yet authorize airstrikes to prevent the collapse of the government at the hands of a brutal Islamic insurgency.
The journey from then to now is a tale of premature celebration and dashed hopes. A president who thought he had set Iraq on a more stable course that could be sustained without American help has now determined that American diplomacy and power are critical to saving it. Tired of war, like most Americans, he found his aspiration to move on bedeviled by forces tearing across a region in a story punctuated by miscalculation and missed opportunities."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/world/middleeast/relief-over-us-exit-from-iraq-fades-as-reality-overtakes-hope.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
"Relief Over U.S. Exit From Iraq Fades as Reality Overtakes Hope
By PETER BAKERJUNE 22, 2014
WASHINGTON — Standing in Al Faw palace in Baghdad, surrounded by an artificial lake and the ragged remnants of eight years of war, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. felt a surge of emotion on that day in December 2011.
He had gone to Iraq to note the end of an era, the departure of American troops from a country that had cost his own so much. Ebullient, he praised the troops, congratulated the generals, wished Iraqi leaders good luck and calledPresident Obama to share his excitement.
“All I’ve said about this job, I take it back,” Mr. Biden later recalled telling Mr. Obama. “Thank you for giving me the chance to end this goddamn war.”
“Joe,” he remembered the president responding, “I’m glad you got to do it.”
For two men who had run for office on the promise of getting out of Iraq, it seemed like a moment of validation. But that moment has proved achingly ephemeral. It was not the end of the war or even the end of their involvement.
Two and a half years later, Mr. Obama has ordered up to 300 Special Operations members back to Iraq and may yet authorize airstrikes to prevent the collapse of the government at the hands of a brutal Islamic insurgency.
The journey from then to now is a tale of premature celebration and dashed hopes. A president who thought he had set Iraq on a more stable course that could be sustained without American help has now determined that American diplomacy and power are critical to saving it. Tired of war, like most Americans, he found his aspiration to move on bedeviled by forces tearing across a region in a story punctuated by miscalculation and missed opportunities."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/world/middleeast/relief-over-us-exit-from-iraq-fades-as-reality-overtakes-hope.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
