The Consequences of Pulling Out of Iraq in 2011

Less than one week ago, the last remaining United States troops in Iraq crossed the border into Kuwait. I am neutral in whether it was the right time to pull out our troops mainly because I do not know what else we could have accomplished while remaining there (without seriously changing our role), however, Iraq is not ready to govern itself.

As we left, Iraq has no standing Air Force meaning anyone can cross over their skies such as Iran or even Israel. In fact, one of the top Iraqi military leaders, Lieutenant General Babaker Zebari, said Iraq would not be ready to defend its own borders and air space until 2020. Eight years is more than enough time for Iran to turn Iraq into another Lebanon or Syria, essentially another puppet state for the radical regime. I believe the main reason we entered Iraq was to contain Iran (Iraq to the west, Afghanistan to the east) just like Iran is doing to Israel with Syria, Lebanon, Gaza Strip, and now maybe even in Egypt.

To make matters worse, the day after the United States military presence was non existent, the Iraqi government started making moves to possibly reignite sectarian violence. Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, issued an arrest warrant for Vice President, Tariq al-Hasemi, who is Sunni. The Vice President is now in hiding from Iraqi officials in the northern semiautonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq and al-Maliki is now ordering Kurdistan officials to turn over the Vice President. Surely the coalition government is bound to collapse over this incident and who knows whats in store for the government. All we can do is hope this does not turn into another dictatorship. 


Lastly, as reported today, deadly bombings are now starting to happen as over 50 people have been killed in the most recent attack. No matter what day, month, or year we pulled out, this was bound to happen. While it is not a coincidence, all we can do is hope the Iraqis can find the strength to pull through these terrorist attacks and not revert to another civil war. If that happens, it will not stop until a dictator is once again in power or the nation is divided up into three regions which I don't see happening.


The United States did remove an extremely evil man from power, Saddam Hussein, and did an amazing job with the "troop surge" ordered in 2007. Pulling out of Iraq in 2011 was premature if we wanted the Iraq experiment to succeed so they could have liberty and be able to defend it. While the 2020 mark was way too long into the future, it was not ideal to pull out now, especially because their defense forces are not ready. If Iraq goes back to its historical ways, history could blame President Obama because of his failure to secure a proper deal for the United States military to remain in Iraq for a couple more years. President Bush was constantly in contact with the Iraqi government to secure deals, but, Obama did not show the same due diligence. All we can do now, is hope Iraq can get the proper resources to secure itself quickly and not have the coalition government based on religious factions, collapse.


-Christian N.


Sources:

• http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/18/world/la-fg-iraq-last-convoy-20111219
• http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iYV48140VGP9NW1ILBsXkgWVsE4g?docId=CNG.df3ecb21e974d96be42ce539d582b290.3c1
• http://www.theblaze.com/stories/iraq-issues-arrest-warrant-for-sunni-vp-on-terrorism-charges/
• http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/12/22/explosions-rock-baghdad-7-killed-3-injured/?test=latestnews

Egypt, Iran, Israel, and the New Persian Empire

With the recent riots in Tunisia, Egypt, and now appears to be heading to Jordan and possibly Saudi Arabia I can only come to one conclusion. 

Iran wants a new empire, to control the Suez Canal and almost all the World's Oil to crush The United States economically (since it can't defeat us militarily) and completely surround Israel to destroy them as they have stated numerous times. 

Of the Countries within the bold boarder, only Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq are mostly/completely sovereign from Iran. The other nations now have radicals within them attempting to take over (Egypt, Pakistan, Tunisia, Yemen) and the rest are puppet governments funded by Iran and/or are strong allies of them.

In the case of Egypt, yes Mubarak is a dictator, however, he is an ally of the United States. Yes, Egypt should have free and open elections, but the group leading the riots, the Muslim Brotherhood, has publicly stated that Israel should prepare for war against the "new" Egypt. This will be a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" only that the new boss will suppress more rights of the people of Egypt, become an enemy of the United States and Israel, and most likely be a puppet of Iran. 

This is why holding Egypt as an ally is key. If we lose it, all of Northern Africa goes into chaos because the superpower in the region fell, as well as the Middle East, with Iran ready to take over the region.

This is why we need to get off of foreign oil, drill our own (plus with other solutions), because if we don't, we could be next in the category of chaos.

Will Joe Biden be right? Obama to be "tested"

Remember when Joe Biden said  "Mark my words, It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did to John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator, President of the United States of America. And he's going to need help...to stand with him. Because it's not going to be apparent initially,The world is looking. We're about ; it's not going to be apparent that we're right."

Are the North Koreans going to be the one's who test them and their so called "satellite" launch? I'm curious to see what Obama actually does with this. Will he be tough with them as he claimed he would be at the G-20 summit in London? I think he's acting "tough" right now, and will do nothing, as this incident will most likely be forgotten in a few weeks. 

A lot of factors could happen in this launch, it could blow up on the launch pad like the last time the Taepodong 2 Missile was tested, it could be successful for the North Koreans  and possibly land near Hawaii or Alaska. While I personally doubt this missile has a WMD on it, what about future launch's from the North Korea or Iran (who has interest in this test) will that be "the real deal?"

This is why Obama should not "follow through" on his promise to not weaponize space, and continue nuclear proliferation talks.  At the G-20 he pretty much said lets get rid of all our WMD's. If we can't really talk to Iran, Russia, North Korea, China how the heck are we going to convince them to empty out their arsenal? We also have an unstable Pakistan with them as well. I hope the day never happens but if we are attacked by a WMD from a nation, not a terrorist attack, how will we respond?

This is why Obama must continue on the Missile Defense System ("Stars Wars" defense) initially started by President Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was right on this issue, lets not try to ban WMD's, lets shoot them out of the sky.

So is North Korea's test, a test on our president, and our foreign policy, and to see if they can finally have a missile that can carry out a WMD attack against South Korea, Japan, Hawaii/Alaska or will Iran use it against Israel?

Either way, this is a test, and maybe Joe Biden was right.