“The Islamic State is trying to create a religious divide and an anti-refugee backlash, so that Muslims will feel alienated and turn to extremism. If so, American and European politicians are following the Islamic State’s script.”
Source: They Are Us – The New York Times
From comments at the NYT: John boyer Atlanta 5 hours ago
I was on board with this until Kristof went for the Obama criticism, and the far fetched view that Syria is his worst foreign policy failure. Historically, the US won’t invade a sovereign state unless provoked, or in the case of Iraq, where the provocation was fabricated. The situation in Syria when the Arab Spring fomented revolution in 2012 saw upheaval throughout the region, and Assad started bombing his own people. So Obama tried to bluff Assad out of power, but unless people in this country think he should have fabricated evidence to support an invasion, then what are we talking about.
So it’s baffling to me that people think Obama could have stopped Assad from destroying his own country – he was their ruler, that their own military could have deposed if they so chose. It is even more baffling that the Iraqis we spent 10 years training how to fight threw down their weapons in the face of a bunch of a small force in pick-up trucks – they were a JV team. Given that Paul Bremer sent hundreds of thousands of Sunnis home with their rifles at W’s direction in 2002, ISIS was just a powder keg with a long fuse. But the Iraqis we trained should have been able to stop them – 10 years of loyalty to their future wasn’t enough for them – unbelievable. It should be their fight now.
Assad indiscriminately bombing his own people, and Iraqi soldiers surrendering to ISIS have shaped the course of history there.
Both were unpredictable, and clearly not Obama’s fault. Get it right.
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