So, just so I got this straight... [View all]

[Drunken Irishman]

The right believes Obama is to blame for ISIS because he prematurely pulled out of Iraq and therefore allowed the group to grow in influence...

Some on the left believe Obama is now only further responsible for ISIS because he decided to ... bomb 'em?

I know liberals aren't naive. I know this. I know this because, in 2003, they weren't out there buying Bush's lies. But are we really going to believe that completely ignoring anything dealing with Iraq will suddenly make it a tropical paradise? Didn't we just do that the last few years and didn't the situation disintegrate into a continued cluster fuck? The U.S. hasn't done shit in Iraq since the end of 2011. It's now the summer of 2014 - plenty of time for the tension there, supposedly, to die down. It hasn't. In fact, things are worse today than when the withdrawal happened.

Now, I'm not advocating for a continued presence in the region, but there is a true disconnect between both extremes.

ISIS didn't happen because Obama pulled out of Iraq in 2011. It happened because we invaded in 2003 and now the chickens are coming home to roost. Conversely, though, ISIS isn't just going to go away with no U.S. presence in the country. If that were the case, ISIS would have never formed in the first place.

So, it's disingenuous to suggest that the only way this will work out well is if we just let ISIS do their thing in a region that is crumbling - no matter how many people are killed in the process. We can't just say, "let Iraq work it out ... it's not our problem."

Yeah, guys, it kinda is our problem. It's our problem because the direct result of what has happened today is tied to Bush's inept failures. But it's pretty clear ISIS isn't just going to slink away and become some peace loving group if the United States pulls even further back from the region and I say that with certainly because there is no evidence that was happening prior to the collapse.

Bush put Obama in the worst possible place and now he's doing what he can without sending us to war. You can ignore the crisis going on there, but as it is with Syria, it doesn't change the fact the crisis is still happening. The difference, of course, between the U.S. and Syria and even Israel and Palestine, is that while the U.S. may have indirectly influenced the issues in these areas, they are not as responsible for 'em as the Iraqi mess. What is happening in Iraq is absolutely the fault of our government and that, whether you supported the war or not, does kind of beholden us to their cause ... as fucked up as it sounds.

Now, you can debate all you want about how best to handle the situation, but it's clear doing nothing isn't working. If it was, well, then, we wouldn't be in the spot now would we?