Top Dem Blasts Iraq's ISIS Strategy As Baghdad's U.S.-Friendly Leader Struggles

[Purveyor]

Source: Huffington

Posted: 05/19/2015 3:18 pm EDT

WASHINGTON -- Days after it lost a vital provincial capital in its fight against the Islamic State group, Iraq's fragile government is now seeing setbacks in another battle: the struggle for U.S. approval and support.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a prominent congressional voice on foreign policy, blasted Baghdad in a Tuesday morning Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters.

"If Iraqis aren't willing to fix the security problem, we shouldn't send the U.S. military to do the job for them," Schiff said, raising the question of whether the U.S. should expand its footprint in Iraq beyond its airstrike campaign and the 3,000 advisers it presently has posted there. He pointed to the Iraqi government's loss of the provincial capital of Ramadi on Sunday as proof Baghdad has yet to craft a strategy that can effectively combat the Islamic State group, also called ISIS or ISIL.

Schiff argued that the Iraqi government's main response to the defeat, which has been a call for Iranian-backed Shiite militias to retake the provincial capital, is another sign the Shiite-led Baghdad government is not effectively building support among Iraqi Sunnis. Many Sunnis have embraced ISIS for reasons that include feeling alienated by powerful Shiites.



Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/19/adam-schiff-iraq-abadi-isis_n_7315904.html

[Renew Deal]

1. Are we comfortable leaving Iraq to the winner of the wars

If so, then Schiff is right. If not, then Schiff is wrong.

[bemildred]

8. Schiff was my Rep.

Last edited Wed May 20, 2015, 08:27 AM - Edit history (1)

He takes a real interest in national security affairs, but he is not cynical enough. On the other hand he does not spew the usual 6th grade babble about it, so I have hopes for him. He could really use some people in Congress (like Warren for example) who are smart, articulate, and who don't take any prisoners when they deal with these criminals in the bureaucracy and civilian elites.

[bemildred]

9. And Schiff is right that it's not up to us, and we better get used to that.

All we have done so far with our vaunted military is turn the place into an abbatoir, and that's all we ever do, so we ought to stop.

[bemildred]

2. Maybe it's time to admit that Iraq is not going to be a unified country again. nt

[KoKo]

4. ...!

[madokie]

5. Not in anyone who are alive todays lifetime thats for sure

I thought they were way better off prior to our illegal war

[Johnyawl]

6. Neither the majority Shiites or the Kurds thought they were better off...

...with the minority Sunni's running things.

Iraq was a mess before we got there. It's always been a mess.

[madokie]

7. Ask them today

I fucking guarantee not a single one of them will tell you they are better off today. Their counrty is in tatters, their infrastrure is NOT, they live from hand to mouth. Before they had homes, streets, cars to drive on those streets and on and on. Take your right wing bullshit and peddle it somewhere else I'm not interested in it.
Fuck this trash spewing you're spouting here.

[Fred Sanders]

3. Panicking. Again. America is addicted to panic.