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Obama Passes Terrorist Buck to Next President
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
August 3, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Bogged down with the Israeli-Hamas skirmish in Gaza,
the White House has turned a blind eye to the Islamic terrorist takeover of Iraq
and Syria, inviting the old strategy that cost nearly 3,000 U.S. lives Sept. 11. If Sept. 11 taught anything, it was
the U.S. must act more vigilant with global terror groups seeking to wreak havoc
on U.S. interests. Since the end of
the Soviet-Afghan War Feb. 15, 1989, the progressive assault by a renegade
Saudi, former CIA contractor Osama bin Laden was unmistakable, hitting various
foreign and domestic targets. When
a truck bomb detonated under the South Tower of New York’s World Trade Center
Feb. 26, 1993, former President Bill Clinton didn’t get the wake-up call. When Bin Laden’s rampage hit a
fever’s pitch Aug. 7 1998 bombing U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and
Nairobi, Kenya, the Clinton White House did next to nothing.
It wasn’t until the Guided Missile frigate U.S.S. Cole was hit by Bin
Laden Oct. 12, 2000 killing 17 U.S. sailors, that former President Bill Clinton
ordered a throwaway Cruise missile attack on Bin Laden’s hideout some 100
kilometers from Kabul Afghanistan.
Old recordings of Clinton hours before Sept. 11 saying he could have killed Bin
Laden in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 1998 shows just how backward U.S. terrorism
policy was at the time. It took
Sept. 11 for President George W. Bush to finally rewrite U.S. terrorism policy
taking the battle to the enemy.
Bush squandered his anti-terrorism mandate going to war in Iraq March 20, 2001,
spending over $1 trillion and sacrificing nearly 5,000 U.S. troops, jading the
country to foreign military intervention.
President Barack Obama’s anti-terror policies mirror the public’s disgust
for foreign wars and the U.S. playing world policeman.
Bush had the right approach to his anti-terror policy taking the battle
with the U.S. military to the enemy.
Where he went off-track was dismantling the authoritarian regime of
Iraq’s Saddam Hussein—a despicable dictator that kept Islamic terrorism out of
Iraq. Obama campaigned to end the
Iraq War, fulfilling his promise Dec. 15, 2011, opening the door to Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [now re-branded Islamic State]. Judging by the pivot away from any
foreign intervention, Obama passes the buck to the next president for a new
world crisis. Taking over large
swaths of Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has now conquered Kurdish lands in
Northern Iraq. Kurd’s Peshmerga
fighters are no match for al-Baghdadi’s well-armed militia now claiming a new
Islamic caliphate across the Mideast.
Taking over the Kurdish town of Sinjar, al-Baghdadi drove Kurds into full
retreat.
Letting al-Baghdadi’s Islamic
thugs to seize more Mideast territory will come back to haunt the U.S. When Clinton failed to act against
Bin Laden, the U.S. continues to pick up the pieces from Sept. 11. Al-Baghdadi’s gains in Northern Iraq
and Syria will eventually wash up on U.S. soil.
“The [Kurdish] Peshmerga have withdrawn from Sinjar, Daash has entered
the city,” said Kurdish officials Kheiri Sirjari to the French AFP news service,
referring to Islamic State. “The
Peshmerga have withdrawn to mountain areas and are getting reinforcements,” said
high-ranking Kurdish official. Kurd’s Regional Government led by President Massoud Barzani have begged Obama for
military help, including U.S. forces and essential hardware. With Mosul falling to the Islamic
State June 10, thousands of civilians fled to neighboring towns like Sinjar,
where Iraq’s Turkmen Shiites took refuge.
Home to the shrinking Yazidis Kurdish minority that still practices
Zoroastrianism, they now face extinction with the Islamic State promising to
massacre infidels and heretics. “A
humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in Sinjar,” said U.N. envoy Nockolay Miadenov. Watching Sinjar’s Yazidis,
Christians and other Shiitea flee for their lives shows how much the West has
turned a blind eye on al-Baghdadi’s atrocities.
“The United Nations has grave concerns for the physical safety of these
civilians,” said Miadenov, watching in sheer frustration as the Islamic State
runs roughshod over local groups.
“The world and the Iraqi government have to do something because some
people—including Yazidis and Christians—have fled on foot and are now probably
stuck in very dangerous areas,” said Miadenov, begging the Obama administration
for urgent military help.
Whatever what wrong with the Iraq War, Obama faces an implacable
challenge beating back the Islamic State’s takeover of Kurdish territory in
Northern Iraq. While it’s probably
too late to get back large swaths of Sunni-controlled Iraq territory, it’s not
too late to rid Mosul and local cities and villages of al-Baghdadi’s forces. Iraq’s U.S-backed Baghdad-based
government of Nouri al-Maliki has no military presence in Iraq’s Northern
territories. Now consolidating
forces for al-Baghdadi’s eventual assault on Baghdad, Obama could at least lobby
Congress to help the Kurds get rid of the Islamic State and assert control over
Kurdish territories. Beating back
Peshmerga’s fighters, al-Baghdadi’s looks poised to take over Iraq. With U.S. help, the Kurd’s
Peshmergas could retake Mosul and other smaller towns and cities in Kurdish
territory. Without urgent U.S.
help, al-Baghdadi gets closer to conquering Iraq.
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