History Lesson

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been closely following events in Iraq since shortly after the U.S. invasion, as I first contributed to, then took ownership of the blog Today in Iraq. We have a reader who thought that changing the subject from the Residents recent abandonment of the Syrian Kurds to the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011 would place the blame for the rise of Islamic State on Barack Obama.In fact the so-calledStatus of Force Agreement that required U.S. forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011 was signed by President George W. Bush in 2008. The Obama administration attempted to negotiate a new agreement that would allow a small contingent of military advisers to remain, but the Iraqi parliament would not agree to it. U.S. forces therefore departed Iraq before the end of December 2011, although a contingent of some 5,000 U.S. mercenaries remained, along with marines guarding the U.S. embassy and consulates.The absence of U.S. forces in Iraq, however, had nothing to do with the formation and rise of the Islamic State. That occurred in Syria, where individuals radicalized by the U.S. invasion of Iraq took advantage of the power vacuum caused by the Syrian civil war to seize territory. When IS forces subsequently crossed the border and attacked Iraqi territory in Anbar and Salah U ' din provinces, the corrupt and inept Iraqi army fled. Iraq thereupon invited limited U.S. forces in to assist in the campaign to recover the lost territory.The Obama admi...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs