What was the poor job in exiting? O followed the status of forces agreement that W signed, something you’ve pointed out before. Notwithstanding the fact that ISIS actually arose in Syria in the power vacuum of Syria’s civil war, not the absence of American control over Iraq.
Yes, Trump’s current position is that 1) They shouldn’t have invaded Iraq, and 2) However, given they were there, they should have left a lot of troops there longer to maintain order.
is inconsistent with Trump’s past quotes. I might consider this to be a “weak” preference though, since he didn’t actually submit a vote on the issue. To me, voting makes the difference between saying and doing. Hillary, who actually voted for the war, should be considered a stronger supporter of that past US action.
is inconsistent with his “America First” platform, which is to reduce spending on foreign wars. Also, it’s easy for him to say this in retrospect. What should matter more is his position on current events, which he has somehow avoided specifying.
So essentially, he has flip flopped on both issues and seems to be just making things up. This would be expected in the early stages of the campaign, since a businessman is committed to different things than a detailed analysis of foreign policy. At this point though, it’s quite surprising that no one has worked out a policy roadmap for his campaign.
So it’s your position that W laid out a great plan that wasn’t only wonderful on the day he laid it out, but was still wonderful 3 years later? FWIW, the Obama administration tried to negotiate leaving 10,000 troops in Iraq but failed to come to agreement with the Iraqi government. Is it also your position that ISIS would be equally powerful if it were confined to Syria?
That doesn’t refute what I said. We all know O tried to negotiate a different timeline, however US troop presence in Iraq isn’t unilateral. What else is O supposed to do if the local nation is steadfastly against a US troop presence?
ISIS would be less powerful if it were confined to Syria, but it’s also correct that it didn’t emerge in Iraq’s vacuum.
Hillary’s reaction to the Wikileaks question was surprisingly weak, though she did manage to switch the subject quickly.
The proper way to address that is to say that you have your personal convictions as a private citizen and political positions as an elected or appointed official that reflect what is possible in the current environment, and the goal is that these should be generally aligned, even if the need to get things done and produce legislation or actions that require others to support it mean that the two are not always identical at any given moment.
Finally, there’s a lot of hindsight in this, at the time of US withdrawal “ISIS” was still an AQI branch and didn’t emerge as a distinct unit for nearly two years afterwards.
It’s repeated dictator behavior; anyone who crosses him he goes after and eliminates (rape accusers, racist accusers, Ted Cruise, Hillary). It’s perfectly in proportion. USA is going down this road of tyranny, and Trump is your guy for that. Americans really love to act naive, then “oh we didn’t see that coming, we got taken advantage of!!”.
Highlighted part of 1. Do a better job of negotiating. The Iraqi president was open to having a residual force remain behind, but was worried about the view of the Iraqi legislature. Good diplomacy would have found a way to come to a reasonable agreement, especially considering that the Pentagon wanted to keep 24k troops in Iraq.
On 2, correct, it did not emerge in Iraq’s vacuum. It emerged in Syria’s civil war, which has occurred entirely during the Obama administration, and grew to power in Syria and Iraq’s vacuum.
So, Trump’s statement is not correct (big shocker there), but it does not change the fact that actions and inactions by the Obama administration, including during the period of time when Hillary was of Sec. of State, have contributed to the birth and growth of ISIS.
I don’t want Trump to be president, so I’m not going to vigorously defend him, but appointing a special prosecutor to investigate what you consider to be a significant crime by a high ranking public official is a far cry from Hitler and Stalin, which as the comparisons that were made on TV after the debate in reference to Trump’s statement. By your logic, the fact that Hillary is running for president makes her immune from prosecution.
That’s a pretty weak response. How do you know they could have done a “better” job in negotiating? Al Maliki may have supported a residual US presence, but he is not the sole authority and has to answer not only to his legislature, but to his neighbor Iran.
Your second statement is also wrong, Obama’s policies had nothing to do with the “birth” of ISIS, something which happened in a third country. Nor did they contribute to its growth which was driven by internal failures in Iraqi politics not American ones. The persons most responsible for the growth of ISIS are Nour Al Maliki and Bashar Assad, not Obama or Hillary.
The dictator does one move at a time, and the naive masses argue to themselves “well, I guess that could be explained rationally, it’s not the same as Hitler/Stalin, cause it’s done in a seemingly legal way”, but as they fall deeper into the con artist’s trap it becomes harder to lie to themselves and justify what they are a part of, and then one day they realize what has happened (as they stand on trial for supporting Hitler). Millions have made this mistake.
Yet anyone standing back using intuition sees this is his character from the beginning. But Americans lost intuition.