Asleep at the switch‼️ The Obama administration is responsible today for the state of Iraq

While the U.S. intelligence community had estimated that the Islamic State had about 10,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq before it captured Mosul, that estimate is now being revised upward, several intelligence officials said at a briefing last week on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter Bloomberg.com.

And the Administration is surprised❓ Suddenly an army of 10,000 or more appears in Iraq, is now engaged in genocide, including beheadings and even crucifixions and the US military is needed for humanitarian reasons❓

No doubt our President will soon announce to them the time and date that the air strikes will stop … November 3rd is a likely date.

(CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama called the war in Iraq a “dangerous distraction” Tuesday and said more emphasis must be placed on the battle in Afghanistan.

Sen. Barack Obama said he would take the country in a new direction, should he become president. [That’s one campaign promises fulfilled 100%]

“As should have been apparent to President Bush and Sen. [John] McCain, the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was,” Obama said in what his campaign called a major policy address on Iraq, Afghanistan and national security.

Obama said that part of his new strategy will be “taking the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Shortly after Obama’s speech, McCain attacked the Illinois senator’s opposition to the surge policy in Iraq and highlighted his own proposal for victory in Afghanistan. Read what McCain says about Obama’s plan

“Sen. Obama is departing soon on a trip abroad that will include a fact-finding mission to Iraq and Afghanistan. And I note that he is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he has even left, before he has talked to Gen. [David] Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time,” McCain said.

“In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: First, you assess the facts on the ground; then you present a new strategy.”

Obama said that on his first day in office he would give the military a new mission: ending the war in Iraq.

Pointing to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s recent call for a timetable, Obama said “now is the time for a responsible redeployment of our combat troops that pushes Iraq’s leaders toward a political solution, rebuilds our military, and refocuses on Afghanistan and our broader security interests.”

Obama said he planned to remove combat brigades from Iraq by the summer of 2010. He also said he would send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan – CNN Politics.com July 15, 2008

What the hell is going on? Oh I know, it’s all George Bush’s fault or maybe Kermit the Frog, perhaps Erwin Rommel, anybody except those in charge today. No matter how you feel about the Iraq war, or Bush, this Administration took responsibility on January 2009 and it’s policies are responsible for the current state of affairs. The decisions it made beginning in 2010 have contributed to the mess we have now and the real shame is the disservice it does to the sacrifices made by thousands of members of the US military. Like Vietnam, we may ask; “for what?”

Iraq is a bloody mess. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has extended its hold from eastern Syria into western and northern Iraq, massacring Shi’ites, Christians and Yazidis wherever it can. Meanwhile in Baghdad there has been a constitutional crisis, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki threatening to cling to power even though his own political bloc has chosen a different candidate.

The situation is now so bad that it has impinged on the holiday arrangements of our own leaders in the West. President Barack Obama, as he relaxes in Martha’s Vineyard, is at the same time somehow meant to be directing US warplanes back into action to succour tens of thousands of trapped Yazidis and to relieve the pressure on Kurdistan’s capital, Erbil. David Cameron, for his part, had to take time out from his holiday in Portugal so as to order the RAF to drop humanitarian supplies to the Yazidis.

But these are small steps that will hardly shake the newfound power of the Islamic State. What more are Obama and Cameron prepared to do to deal with the growing threat from Isis — which, left unchecked, would not only be a strategic disaster for their countries but a political disaster for them?

Faced with these troubles in a strange, far-away land, it would be natural for many westerners, including Obama and Cameron, to despair. No doubt many on both sides of the Atlantic are concluding that this latest spasm of ugliness is a natural result of the misguided Bush-Blair invasion of Iraq, that Iraqis simply like to massacre each other and that there is little the West can or should do about it. Didn’t our previous intervention just make things worse?

This is alluring but wrong-headed. In point of fact, while the US and Britain did create a disaster in Iraq by not doing more to maintain law and order after Saddam Hussein’s downfall, the situation turned dramatically after the success of the ‘surge’ in 2007-2008. Violence fell more than 90 per cent and Iraqi politics began to function again. The situation was stable enough that in 2010 Vice President Joe Biden bragged on CNN that Iraq would be ‘one of the great achievements of this administration’.

The wheels came off only when, after failing to get a Status of Forces Agreement with Maliki, Obama pulled out all US troops at the end of 2011. With no Americans looking over his shoulder, Maliki was free to unleash his inner sectarian. His victimisation of Sunnis made them receptive to Isis, which was being reborn in the chaos of Syria. – The Spectator, UK