Sunni Radical Insurgency in Iraq. North of Country Overrun.

[Doctor_K]

So I have a question:

The fact is that your great leader failed to negotiate a status of forces agreement. 

Minus the snark of 'dear leader' (which is disrespectful to the Office, btw, but I digress), why would Obama negotiate a new SOFA, after the SOFA that Bush signed in 2009 to have all American combatant forces out of the country by 2011 had run its course?

Why leave and then do a new SOFA?  Could you elaborate?

I'll be curious to see your spin when your great leader commits forces to this debacle that he, and people like you, have created.

Which debacle?  Invading a sovereign country on what later became false pretenses? Or adhering to a SOFA enacted by a previous administration mandating your Armed Forces leave said country?  How is abiding by treaty stipulations a debacle?

[NotNow]

So I have a question:

The fact is that your great leader failed to negotiate a status of forces agreement. 

Minus the snark of 'dear leader' (which is disrespectful to the Office, btw, but I digress), why would Obama negotiate a new SOFA, after the SOFA that Bush signed in 2009 to have all American combatant forces out of the country by 2011 had run its course?

Why leave and then do a new SOFA?  Could you elaborate?

You are right.  "dear leader" is disrespectful to the office.  I apologize.  SOFA's are renegotiated all of the time.  It was common knowledge at the time that the 2008 SOFA agreement stipulation of withdrawal was for internal political reasons in Iraq.  Everyone knew that the SOFA was going to be renegotiated.  The Obama/Biden team just didn't get it done.  It was a big story at the time, remember?

I'll be curious to see your spin when your great leader commits forces to this debacle that he, and people like you, have created.

Which debacle?  Invading a sovereign country on what later became false pretenses? Or adhering to a SOFA enacted by a previous administration mandating your Armed Forces leave said country?  How is abiding by treaty stipulations a debacle?

The Iraq Resolution of 2002 (per Wikipedia):

The resolution cited many factors to justify the use of military force against Iraq:[2][3]

-Iraq's noncompliance with the conditions of the 1991 ceasefire agreement, including interference with U.N. weapons inspectors.
-Iraq "continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability" and "actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability" posed a "threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region."
-Iraq's "brutal repression of its civilian population."
-Iraq's "capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people".
-Iraq's hostility towards the United States as demonstrated by the 1993 assassination attempt on former President George H. W. Bush and firing on coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones following the 1991 Gulf War.
-Members of al-Qaeda, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq.
-Iraq's "continu[ing] to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations," including anti-United States terrorist organizations.
-Iraq paid bounty to families of suicide bombers.
-The efforts by the Congress and the President to fight terrorists, and those who aided or harbored them.
-The authorization by the Constitution and the Congress for the President to fight anti-United States terrorism.
-The governments in Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia feared Saddam and wanted him removed from power.
Citing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the resolution reiterated that it should be the policy of the United States to remove the Saddam Hussein regime and promote a democratic replacement.
_________________________________

That resolution was passed by Congress and enacted on October 16th, 2002.  False pretenses?

The debacle is the loss of at least Northern Iraq and the huge investment made by this country in lives and treasure.  The Obama administration simply ignored wiser advise and failed to negotiate a new agreement.  The US has provided hundreds of billions of dollars to the government of Iraq.  We had the leverage to negotiate a new agreement, we just didn't use it.

Every President is dealt a deck of cards.  You don't pick the cards you get, you play your hand when your turn comes around.  President Obama chose to pull out of Iraq.  He chose to arm and train the ISIS fighters.  I have walked you to water.

[NotNow]

6 REASONS OBAMA LOST IRAQ

As hundreds of thousands flee before the onrushing Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist army, media defenders of the Obama administration are rushing to prop up the ailing Obama foreign policy.
"Who lost Iraq?" writes the Washington Post's Fareed Zakaria. "Whenever America has asked this question – as it did with China in the 1950s or Vietnam in the 1970s – the most important point to remember is: the local rulers did." Joy Reid of MSNBC blamed former President George W. Bush by implication: "it's this unpleasant recent history that helped set the stage for the bloody events that we're seeing in Iraq right now." And Democratic Governor of Rhode Island Lincoln Chafee went after Bush directly: "These neocons [neo-conservatives] all through the '90s were talking the importance of regime change in Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, the strongman. I just didn't understand stirring up the hornets' nest that is the Middle East. It just never made any sense to me, and now we're seeing some of the ramifications of having deviated from our Cold War containment strategy."
The reality, however, is that neither weak local rulership nor the rationale for the Iraq war in 2003 explains just why the country has fallen back into chaos. After all, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been in power since 2006; he has been incompetent and corrupt since day one. President Obama's attempt to suggest that only tremendous leadership by al-Maliki can achieve victory is a plausible way of punting. And Bush has been out of office since 2008.
Nor was Iraq unwinnable. The same pundits who state that Vietnam and China were unwinnable wars forget that by 1973, Vietnam had been won, and that Mao had been defeated long before World War II, but was brought back into the fold by the United States in the aftermath of the defeat of Japan. United States foreign policy matters.
President Obama is responsible for the collapse of security in Iraq. Here are the six top reasons why.
Pulling Troops Out of Iraq After The War Was Won Left a Power Vacuum. By 2008, President Bush's surge in forces had achieved large-scale security in Iraq. In November of 2006, 3,475 Iraqis died in battle and 69 Americans were killed as well; that number was down to 500 and 12, respectively, by November 2008. Violence in Anbar province had dropped 90 percent. As leftist Peter Beinart wrote in 2009 in the Washington Post, "if Iraq overall represents a massive stain on Bush's record, his decision to increase America's troop presence in late 2006 now looks like his finest hour."
In 2008, the Bush administration negotiated a status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government that would remove troops by the end of 2011. Bush signed that agreement in anticipation of Obama's entry to the White House. Sure enough, Obama then failed to sign a renewed status of forces agreement. According to David Filkens of the New Yorker:
[E]very single senior political leader, no matter what party or what group, including Maliki, said to them privately, we want you to stay. We don't want you to fight. We don't want combat troops. We don't want Americans getting killed, but we want 10,000 American troops inside the Green Zone training our army, giving us intelligence, playing that crucial role as the broker and interlocutor that makes our system work. We want you to stay.
Filkens told NPR that James Jeffrey, an American ambassador, said he "got no guidance from the White House."
Now there is no stabilization force in Iraq. And with an ISIS force that is merely hundreds large, according to some reports, rushing through Iraq with impunity, it is difficult to argue that even a minor force wouldn't have made a difference.
Pulling Troops Out of Iraq Allowed Al-Maliki's Sectarianism to Dominate. Al-Maliki was, as noted, always a disaster area. But America's presence prevented him from using his power to dominate the Sunni minority in Iraq and forge close ties with Iran. Filkins points out, "Time and again, American commanders have told me, they stepped in front of Maliki to stop him from acting brutally and arbitrarily toward Iraq's Sunni minority." Then, he writes, "the Americans left," and everything went to hell in a handbasket:
In the two and a half years since the Americans' departure, Maliki has centralized power within his own circle, cut the Sunnis out of political power, and unleashed a wave of arrests and repression. Maliki's march to authoritarian rule has fueled the re-emergence of the Sunni insurgency directly. With nowhere else to go, Iraq's Sunnis are turning, once again, to the extremists to protect them.
The Leader of ISIS Was Released by The Obama Administration. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, leader of ISIS, was in US custody in Camp Bucca, in Iraq. He was released in 2009 when the US shut down the camp in anticipation of the end of US presence in the country.
Enabling Iran. Al-Maliki has turned to Iran in this crisis. And why not? The United States is nowhere to be found, and al-Maliki's radical anti-Sunni policies make him a popular man with the mullahs. Not only that – President Obama has surrendered all pretense at holding Iran accountable throughout his tenure, from abandoning the Iranian opposition in 2009 to signing an empty-headed nuclear deal with the mullahs last year to leaving Iranian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad untouched after Assad used chemical weapons against civilians. Iran is now the regional power. Which means that Iraq itself will now become a proxy war in which America loses either way: either ISIS wins, or the Iranians do.
Contributing to Syrian Chaos. Focusing on Israel instead of Syria, then arming the Syrian opposition while refusing to do anything after Bashar Assad's gassing of civilians, President Obama has contributed to a chaotic situation that facilitated ISIS' rise in Syria. ISIS plays both sides of the aisle. On the one hand, they want to break away from Assad's regime; on the other hand, they are saving their ammunition for use against erstwhile allies who don't want an Islamist state.
ISIS began working in Syria in 2009 as an anti-Assad, al Qaeda-associated rebel faction. A few years later, the Obama administration began shipping arms into the country. One of the great concerns with the situation in Syria has always been the capacity for weaponry to fall into the wrong hands. While the Obama administration has claimed that it has the perfect ability to follow the weaponry, that is doubtful at best – and ISIS has been seizing warehouses of weapons.
Now the Obama administration, including President Obama, claims that it is busily vetting the Syrian opposition to which America has shipped arms. On Sunday, National Security Advisor Susan Rice explained, "the United States has ramped up its support for the moderate vetted opposition, providing lethal and non-lethal support where we can to support both the civilian opposition and the military opposition." Meanwhile, ISIS is grabbing US humvees in Iraq itself.
Caving All Over The World. Ukraine. Afghanistan. The Palestinian Authority. Fear of the United States is passé, because there is simply nothing to fear. ISIS knows this; so do the Iranians. The only true fear is the fear of our allies, who now know better than to trust a United States that will abandon them at the worst possible time.


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/06/13/6-reasons-Obama-lost-Iraq

[JeffreyS]

It's not lost it was never ours. I love our conservatives say leave Americans to handle their problems alone but think big government and our soldiers dying for Iraq is a great idea.

[NotNow]

http://www.youtube.com/v/pT7Ik_X1HU0

and by the way, breitbart?  Really?  James O Keefe's home away from home?

Its about as credible as talking to Alex Jones about Chinese domestic policy under Mao.

Sooo, question the source but not the facts huh?  James O Keefe has done a great job as an amateur journalist.  You would do well to emulate him.  And I don't question your often inaccurate, biased sources,  I just prove them wrong.

[NotNow]

StephenDare!,

The decision to invade Iraq for the second time was authorized by the Iraq Resolution, enacted by Congress in 2002.  I WAS a major undertaking, but successfully accomplished its stated objectives.  President Obama inherited an Iraq with an elected government that had problems with corruption and a small insurgency largely encouraged by sunni's who were out of power or financed from outside Iraq.  President Obama claimed a pacified and democratic Iraq as one of his administrations "premier accomplishments".  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the same claim as a great accomplishment of her time as Secretary.  This is the administration that decided to completely leave Iraq militarily.  Many warned against this.  This administration trained and armed the muslim revolutionaries in Syria.  The same fighters that are in Iraq today.  The Obama administration released the leader of the ISIS force.  While I have become accustomed to any amount of incredulous spin from you, I would have much more respect for this President if he would actually take responsibility for his own actions and those of his staff.

[JeffreyS]

I know there is this burning desire to get our Men and Women in harms way but less compare policy for some of the places where the hawks want our Young GIs.

Afganistan  over 2000 dead
Iraq over 4500 dead
Seria  Zero
Libia  Zero
Egypt  Zero

I like the Obama policy better.

[NotNow]

StephenDare!,

The decision to invade Iraq for the second time was authorized by the Iraq Resolution, enacted by Congress in 2002.  I WAS a major undertaking, but successfully accomplished its stated objectives.  President Obama inherited an Iraq with an elected government that had problems with corruption and a small insurgency largely encouraged by sunni's who were out of power or financed from outside Iraq.  President Obama claimed a pacified and democratic Iraq as one of his administrations "premier accomplishments".  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the same claim as a great accomplishment of her time as Secretary.  This is the administration that decided to completely leave Iraq militarily.  Many warned against this.  This administration trained and armed the muslim revolutionaries in Syria.  The same fighters that are in Iraq today.  The Obama administration released the leader of the ISIS force.  While I have become accustomed to any amount of incredulous spin from you, I would have much more respect for this President if he would actually take responsibility for his own actions and those of his staff.

you are just so full of it.

And I think that you might as well sit tight and stop predicting doom.

I am not predicting doom.  Doom has already happened.  The only things likely to happen from here are bad.  Our (US) options are extremely limited at this point. 

I have relayed the facts.  If that makes me "full of it" then so be it.  You might try embracing TRUTH for a change.

[NotNow]

I know there is this burning desire to get our Men and Women in harms way but less compare policy for some of the places where the hawks want our Young GIs.

Afganistan  over 2000 dead
Iraq over 4500 dead
Seria  Zero
Libia  Zero
Egypt  Zero

I like the Obama policy better.

I have no desire to put anyone in harm's way.   I am simply pointing out the massive incompetence to let years of American lives and treasure slip away.  This is a massive error in an administration with a long record of errors.  The decision on whether to oppose ISIS militarily rests with President Obama. 

The only thing obvious to me is that no matter what Obama does, American lives will be lost due to this incredible incompetence.  The thought that the job of minimizing those losses rest with this bunch of boobs just scares me to death.

Oh, you might change that Libya number to "four".

[NotNow]

StephenDare!,

The decision to invade Iraq for the second time was authorized by the Iraq Resolution, enacted by Congress in 2002.  I WAS a major undertaking, but successfully accomplished its stated objectives.  President Obama inherited an Iraq with an elected government that had problems with corruption and a small insurgency largely encouraged by sunni's who were out of power or financed from outside Iraq.  President Obama claimed a pacified and democratic Iraq as one of his administrations "premier accomplishments".  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the same claim as a great accomplishment of her time as Secretary.  This is the administration that decided to completely leave Iraq militarily.  Many warned against this.  This administration trained and armed the muslim revolutionaries in Syria.  The same fighters that are in Iraq today.  The Obama administration released the leader of the ISIS force.  While I have become accustomed to any amount of incredulous spin from you, I would have much more respect for this President if he would actually take responsibility for his own actions and those of his staff.

you are just so full of it.

And I think that you might as well sit tight and stop predicting doom.

I am not predicting doom.  Doom has already happened.  The only things likely to happen from here are bad.  Our (US) options are extremely limited at this point. 

I have relayed the facts.  If that makes me "full of it" then so be it.  You might try embracing TRUTH for a change.

So there is an insurgency in Iraq, and thats doom for the US??

well ok.

Have it your way.  In the meantime, an actual terrorist group has just gathered all of its soldiers and combatants into a cohesive, easily identified group and committed the kind of atrocities that have united almost the entire Middle East against them.

How exactly do you imagine that will turn out?

The loss of literally billions of dollars in equipment, hundreds or thousands dead, the loss of Northern Iraq and its industry, and the loss of billions of dollars in infrastructure rebuilt by the US qualifies as BAD for us StephenDare!.  If the current Iraqi government cannot defend Baghdad, which is likely at this point, then at least double the loss in all of those areas. 

How will it turn out?  That depends on the decisions of about five different men.  Do you really think the entire middle east is against this group?

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/06/12/iraq_mosul_isis_sunni_shiite_divide_iran_saudi_arabia_syria

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html

[NotNow]

I know there is this burning desire to get our Men and Women in harms way but less compare policy for some of the places where the hawks want our Young GIs.

Afganistan  over 2000 dead
Iraq over 4500 dead
Seria  Zero
Libia  Zero
Egypt  Zero

I like the Obama policy better.

I have no desire to put anyone in harm's way.   I am simply pointing out the massive incompetence to let years of American lives and treasure slip away.  This is a massive error in an administration with a long record of errors.  The decision on whether to oppose ISIS militarily rests with President Obama. 

The only thing obvious to me is that no matter what Obama does, American lives will be lost due to this incredible incompetence.  The thought that the job of minimizing those losses rest with this bunch of boobs just scares me to death.

Oh, you might change that Libya number to "four".

so are you still claiming that those weapons of mass destruction are still there?

Or that the sunni rebels have acquired both an H bomb and the method of delivering it?

1.  The ISIS forces are dedicated enemies of the US and will not hesitate to take American lives when they can.  If they can create the caliphate that they desire, it will be a base of operations for anti US operations. They have told us that.  The threat cannot be denied.

2.  The sunni rebels have modern stinger missiles.  They shot down an Iraqi Army helicopter today with one.  Does that concern you?  Does the mass murder of Iraqi prisoners concern you?  Does even the possibility of our largest diplomatic mission in the world being captured by these terrorists concern you?   Do the lives of the tens of thousands in Baghdad who cooperated with the US in the establishment of a democracy in Iraq concern you? 

Once again, in your haste to sound snarky, you reveal your ignorance of the losses, risks, and dangers of the current situation in Iraq and Syria.

[NotNow]

If you would like to know what the "mission" was, look back to my post on the Iraq Resolution or just google it.  Educate yourself.  I'm not sure how to address the rest of your post.  If you don't understand the loss of equipment, Iraqi lives and freedom, and the rebuilt infrastructure of the country, then it is beyond me to make you get it.  I know when to stop talking to a brick wall. 

Do you have any idea of when the last use of a "weapon of mass destruction" was used and who used it?

[NotNow]

If you would like to know what the "mission" was, look back to my post on the Iraq Resolution or just google it.  Educate yourself.  I'm not sure how to address the rest of your post.  If you don't understand the loss of equipment, Iraqi lives and freedom, and the rebuilt infrastructure of the country, then it is beyond me to make you get it.  I know when to stop talking to a brick wall. 

Do you have any idea of when the last use of a "weapon of mass destruction" was used and who used it?

So it was a bad idea to build the largest embassy in the world in the middle of a country fighting a civil war?

I think it was a bad idea to militarily abandon a country that was not yet stable after investing over four thousand lives and hundreds of billions of dollars there.

It seems like when this was pointed out to you, you said that such ideas were a little too liberal for your tastes.

Building an embassy?  Please reprint when you said that was wrong and when I said that building an embassy was "a little too liberal".  Of course, like most of your drivel, it doesn't exist.

you seem the think that the Shia majority of the country isn't going to defend themselves.

I seem to think that they have done a crappy job so far this month.

Seriously.  You do realize that shooting all those prisoners and beheading has spread like wildfire over the muslim social media, right?

Yep.  So have all of the beheadings over the years by AQ.  Seriously, do you think that there will be some "middle east coalition" that will fight these terrorist?  The Iranians are the only ones willing to send forces so far, but they have their own agenda.

Or do you think that they are all children and can't be trusted?  Because you know....

No.  I don't know.  What are you trying to say?  Speak up if you have something to say.

What does it take for the US to be considering cooperating with Iran, as Republican Lindsay Graham is demanding?

That would put Graham with Kerry on the "dumb idea of the month club".

Or haven't you thought this one through?

Have you?

See, this is why Obama was able to actually locate and kill Osama, and your boys ended up abandoning the goal pretty much altogether.  Even with torture-----which you advocated.

Yeah, OK...you actually believe that?  I'll stick with crediting the teams that worked for years to locate  and kill OBL.  I'll give credit to Obama for the balls it took to OK the flight into Pakistan. 

And you still don't know squat about "torture" .  I advocate winning wars...and living.  What has happened in Iraq this month has not contributed to either.  Tell these guys about how upset you are that three US prisoners were made "uncomfortable".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/15/militants-iraq_n_5496248.html

[finehoe]

I am simply pointing out the massive incompetence to let years of American lives and treasure slip away.  This is a massive error in an administration with a long record of errors. 

Well at least you finally admit the Bush/Cheney junta was a disaster for the United States.

[finehoe]

What do you do with near-clinical fanatics who, in their own minds, never make mistakes and whose worldview remains intact even after it has been empirically dismantled in front of their eyes? In real life, you try and get them to get professional help.

In the case of those who only recently sent thousands of American servicemembers to their deaths in a utopian scheme to foment a democracy in a sectarian dictatorship, we have to merely endure their gall in even appearing in front of the cameras. But the extent of their pathology is deeper than one might expect. And so there is actually a seminar this fall, sponsored by the Hertog Foundation, which explores the origins of the terrible decision-making that led us into the worst foreign policy mistake since Vietnam. And the fair and balanced teaching team?

It will be led by Paul D. Wolfowitz, who served during the Persian Gulf War as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and as Deputy Secretary of Defense during the first years of the Iraq War, and by Lewis Libby, who served during the first war as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and during the Iraq War as Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Next spring: how the Iraq War spread human rights ... by Donald Rumsfeld.

Most people are aware that relatively few of the architects of a war have fully acknowledged the extent of their error – let alone express remorse or even shame at the more than a hundred thousands civilian deaths their adventure incurred for a phony reason. No, all this time, they have been giving each other awards, lecturing congressmen and Senators, writing pieces in the Weekly Standard and the New Republic, being fellated by David Gregory, and sucking at the teet of the neocon welfare state, as if they had nothing to answer for, and nothing to explain.

Which, I suppose makes the following paragraph in Bill Kristol's latest case for war less shocking than it should be:

   

Now is not the time to re-litigate either the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 or the decision to withdraw from it in 2011. The crisis is urgent, and it would be useful to focus on a path ahead rather than indulge in recriminations. All paths are now fraught with difficulties, including the path we recommend. But the alternatives of permitting a victory for al Qaeda and/or strengthening Iran would be disastrous.

But it is shocking; it is, in fact, an outrage, a shameless, disgusting abdication of all responsibility for the past combined with a sickening argument to do exactly the same fricking thing all over again. And yes, I'm not imagining. This is what these true know-nothing/learn-nothing fanatics want the US to do:

   

It would mean not merely conducting U.S. air strikes, but also accompanying those strikes with special operators, and perhaps regular U.S. military units, on the ground. This is the only chance we have to persuade Iraq's Sunni Arabs that they have an alternative to joining up with al Qaeda or being at the mercy of government-backed and Iranian-backed death squads, and that we have not thrown in with the Iranians. It is also the only way to regain influence with the Iraqi government and to stabilize the Iraqi Security Forces on terms that would allow us to demand the demobilization of Shi'a militias and to move to limit Iranian influence and to create bargaining chips with Iran to insist on the withdrawal of their forces if and when the situation stabilizes.

What's staggering is the maximalism of their goals and the lies they are insinuating into the discourse now, just as they did before.

Last time, you could ascribe it to fathomless ignorance. This time, they have no excuse. ISIS is not al Qaeda; it's far worse in ways that even al Qaeda has noted undermine its cause rather than strengthen it. It may be strategically way over its head already. And the idea that the US has to fight both ISIS and Iran simultaneously is so unhinged and so self-evidently impossible to contain or control that only these feckless fools would even begin to suggest it. Having empowered Iran by dismantling Iraq, Kristol actually wants the US now to enter a live war against ISIS and the Quds forces. You begin to see how every military catastrophe can be used to justify the next catastrophe. It's a perfect circle for the neocons' goal of the unending war.

I don't know what to say about it really. It shocks in its solipsism; stuns in its surrealism; chills in its callousness and recklessness. So perhaps the only response is to republish what this charlatan was saying in 2003 in a tone utterly unchanged from his tone today, with a certainty which was just as faked then as it is now. Read carefully and remember he has recanted not a word of it:

February 2003 (from his book, "The War Over Iraq"):  According to one estimate, initially as many as 75,000 troops may be required to police the war's aftermath, at a cost of $16 billion a year. As other countries' forces arrive, and as Iraq rebuilds its economy and political system, that force could probably be drawn down to several thousand soldiers after a year or two.

    February 24, 2003:  "Having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country should not be too tall an order for the world's sole superpower."

    March 5, 2003: "We'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction."

    April 1 2003: "On this issue of the Shia in Iraq, I think there's been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America that, you know, somehow the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular."

Yes, "always been very secular". Always. Would you buy a used pamphlet from this man – let alone another full scale war in Iraq?

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/06/16/kristol-meth-2/