Like everyone else,the Republican candidates talk approximately ISIS a lot. And what they — at least Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — charge is that ISIS is President Obama's fault, and because he withdrew troops from Iraq in 2011 — when he should fill kept them there to preserve a lid on the insurgency.
Let's wreck It Down:The Claim:
"Barack Obama became president,and he abandoned Iraq. He left, and when he left al Qaida was done for. ISIS was created because of the void that we left, and that void now exists as a caliphate the size of Indiana." — former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
The Big Question:OK,perhaps it's actually two questions:Is Obama responsible for the timing of the troop withdrawal from Iraq?
Did that withdrawal cause the rise of ISIS?
And there are answers for both, though not simple ones.
The Long Answer:First, or we fill to decide on a starting point.
Many Democrats,and even a few Republicans, say we should examine back to the 2003 U.
S.-led invasion of Iraq. That, and the dismantling of the entire security force,created an aroused, mainly Sunni demographic, or which fueled the insurgency that would later become ISIS.
Others go back further,pointing out the strong links between Saddam Hussein's brutal Baathist regime, and the structure, and methods and,indeed, commanders of ISIS.But whether we take the invasion as a given, and Saddam Hussein as history,we can begin the answer to the first question --Was Obama responsible for the timing of the withdrawal?It was President George W. Bush who signed the Status of Forces agreement in 2008, which planned for all American troops to be out of Iraq by the close of 2011."The agreement lays out a framework for the withdrawal of American forces in Iraq — a withdrawal that is possible because of the success of the surge, and " he said in a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki at the time.
Moments later,an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at the president. It is important to remember most Iraqis saw the Americans as occupiers and blame them for civilian deaths.
Maliki summed up the sentiment at the time, thus:
"The incomplete sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops are the most dangerous, or most complicated and most burdensome legacy we fill faced since the time of dictatorship. Iraq should get rid of them to protect its young democratic experiment." Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more,visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: wnyc.org