There were also reports on Thursday of fighting further south, in Samarra.
Separately, at least 21 people were killed and 45 hurt by a suicide bomber at a Shia meeting in Baghdad, police said.
June 11, 2014
"Islamist insurgents in Iraq have seized the city of Tikrit, their second major gain after capturing Mosul on Tuesday."
"Tikrit, the capital of Salaheddine province and the hometown of former leader Saddam Hussein, lies just 150km (95 miles) north of Baghdad."
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36 comments:
I hope the embassy in Baghdad has a roof big enough to support Blackhawks...
Geez, this isn't going so well. At least the significant US-supplied weapons can be located and destroyed with cruise missiles or drone attacks (while Al Quaeda is still reading the operating manuals for the Black Hawks.) It might have been nicer to move them in advance... Seems like the Kurds are screwed now.
More foreign policy success by our Dear Leader.
Thank you Prsident Obama. You snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. A victory that may friends and I purchases with our blood and years of our lives.
It is all going as the light bender has foreseen. To the parapets, Obama defenders, now is not the time to give in to weak stomachs for the mayhem unleashed! Now is the time to deny, deny, deny!
Remember, only the US uses deadly force for evil or aggression! That is your mantra!
You would think the Obama defenders would get a break from smearing Bergdahl's fellow soldiers for a day, anyways.
Everything Obama manages blows up.
It's like community organizing.
Good thing we elected Obama, because McCain and Romney would've been worse.
Mark,
back to the same topic. There are a lot of staff at the US Embassy in Baghdad. A lot more than you can fit on a couple of Blackhawks. And the roads South aren't called the Highway of Death for nothing.
We may be bailing out of Baghdad years before Kabul. I guess that's what Teh Won's surge in A-Stan got us. A slower loss.
Reality confounds Maliki. No more US money or soldiers on this. I wouldn't waste the diplomacy either here. If the Iraqi government can't protect those cities and provinces, then they aren't part of Iraq anymore.
This is what Americans voted for.
Viet Nam, what's that?
History repeats itself again.
In Obama's world, this is how wars end.
Lost. What a tragic waste of national blood and treasure.
Both previously Ba'athist regimes are now in a state of civil war.
This is what happens when fascist (and the Ba'athists were/are fascists) regimes start to collapse. All the top-down direction of the previous regime has long ago destroyed any grass root political structures that had the trust of the local populace. In Iraq, attempts by the Coalition to build internal security forces were too little too late. After years of totalitarian rule, what remains are only the atavistic forces of faith & kin.
I saw where the Obama administrations mouth piece was lecturing Maliki on the need to bring Iraq together. Kind of the way Obama has brought this country together I guess.
They're moving fast; just getting people around as quickly as they are shows a very high level of organization that would have been good to know about.
This is an extension of the civil war in Syria. I'm puzzled by the absence of reaction by Iran. The Iranians have an investment of manpower and material in Syria to protect their bestest buddy Assad.
That said, they are also fighting the spread of Sunni Islamism. If Iraq (a majority Shia state) should fall to Sunnis it would be a disaster for Iran.
Could Baghdad fall next?
As Omama said recently, all wars end.
We could be nearing the end of this one.
Seeing Red said...
This is what Americans voted for.
Viet Nam, what's that?
History repeats itself again.
History seldom repeats itself but it sometimes rhymes.
YoungHegelian said...
Both previously Ba'athist regimes are now in a state of civil war.
This is what happens when fascist (and the Ba'athists were/are fascists) regimes start to collapse. All the top-down direction of the previous regime has long ago destroyed any grass root political structures that had the trust of the local populace. In Iraq, attempts by the Coalition to build internal security forces were too little too late. After years of totalitarian rule, what remains are only the atavistic forces of faith & kin.
So in that view this war is not close to an end. That could well be correct. But if the leaders of this current "surge" are as ruthless and thorough as I fear, a long peace of fear and intimidation could be birthing now.
So after the surge we had a pacifiied Iraq. We said don't withdraw troops until conditions are met. But no, they wanted to withdraw troops bbased on a timeline that helped elect Obama.
And now we are about to have Islamic insurgents control Iraq and it's billions from oil. Youd think Obama, recognizing that Al Qaeda is there would do a drone strike or something but no. He's given up on the fight completely.
Young Hegelian wrote:
This is what happens when fascist (and the Ba'athists were/are fascists) regimes start to collapse. All the top-down direction of the previous regime has long ago destroyed any grass root political structures that had the trust of the local populace. In Iraq, attempts by the Coalition to build internal security forces were too little too late. After years of totalitarian rule, what remains are only the atavistic forces of faith & kin.
NO this just means we withdrew too quickly.
We had already gotten a transition govt. It was a matter of making sure that govt didnt' fall, AS WE SAID IT WOULD, by pulling out too fast.
Another Obama "victory."
"Good thing we elected Obama, because McCain and Romney would've been worse."
Ouch.
"Reality confounds Maliki. No more US money or soldiers on this. I wouldn't waste the diplomacy either here. If the Iraqi government can't protect those cities and provinces, then they aren't part of Iraq anymore."
Unfortunately, that leaves the Kurds up the creek. Why would anyone trust us anymore?
Somehow I liked it better when Iraq and Iran were at each other's throats, thereby neutralizing both on the world stage.
After the USA destroyed the vile Ba'athist Hussein government, the reasoning seemed to be, "You broke it so you get to fix it."
But was Iraq ever fixable? We left behind an Islamic Republic dominated by the Shiite majority yet threatened by a now-disposessed Sunni minority, and now the formerly dominant Sunni minority is attempting to regain power by all means available to it.
And who is surprised? Does anyone still believe Iraq- or, really, any other Arab country- is interested in becoming a liberal democracy?
And why did we waste blood and treasure just to install an Islamic Republic anyway? So, we broke it. If it wasn't fixable anyway, what would have been so wrong about just ... leaving?
" So, we broke it. If it wasn't fixable anyway, what would have been so wrong about just ... leaving?"
Well, if you assume that, then I guess you answer your own question. This is the inevitable result of that thinking.
I guess you don't believe that military power deters aggression, often without fighting and weakness invites it, often with bloody results, no matter how many times you see it play out.
I believed at the time Obama announced the withdrawal that this was an inevitable result. We left a democracy unable to defend itself from fascists based on your racist belief that Iraqis were incapable of democracy.
Marx was wrong. History also repeats as tragedy.
This is on Obama. He's clueless, he aims to weaken the U.S., and he gives priority to his own short-term political interests.
In other cases, just one of the three factors was enough to cause failure. All three came into play in the premature withdrawal from Iraq.
Under Bush, Iraq had a chance; with Obama, none.
Obama's gonna be really angry when he reads about this tomorrow in the NY times... or Drudge....
And why did we waste blood and treasure just to install an Islamic Republic anyway?
Because we had another ally in the middle east that wasn't Israel.Because a democratic Iraq was a mitigating influence on Iran, Because........Aw ferget it. reason is wasted on the likes of you.
Welcome to South Vietnam, circa 1975.
I'm sure Obama feels this development was totally unpredictable.
Mass beheadings now:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10892299/Iraq-crisis-al-Qaeda-forces-seize-Mosul-and-Tikrit-live.html
It wasn't Obama's job to try to re-create what might have been, it was Obama's job to deal with the realm of possibility at the point in time he took power.
I hope this doesn't disturb his golf game too much.
Thank God we pulled out to fight the "good war" in Afghanistan!
BTW, how has that worked out?
Is there anything this administration can't royally f***-up?
Let Iraq self-destruct along with Afghanistan. We achieved our primary objectives: Stop Islamic terrorist from attacking the homeland and kill a lot of them along the way. We might have kept Iraq stable and kept the terrorists weak if we had elected a real POTUS. If Al Queda threatens the homeland again, the next real president can go to plan B: Lots of munitions from above.
It is not a defeat, it is a setback that can be remedied with some military diplomacy.
George W. Bush handed over a war in Iraq that was basically won. How do you screw up the end game on a war that is basically won?
You turn it over the Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry.
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