Althouse: "The Islamic State was born out of the ashes of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was crippled by the time Mr. Obama withdrew American forces from Iraq at the end of 2011."

September 30, 2014

"The Islamic State was born out of the ashes of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was crippled by the time Mr. Obama withdrew American forces from Iraq at the end of 2011."

"The civil war that erupted in neighboring Syria pitting President Bashar al-Assad against a variety of rebel organizations provided a haven for the Qaeda affiliate to reconstitute itself with an influx of foreign fighters. 'To anyone watching developments in Iraq from mid-2010 and Syria from early 2011, the recovery and rise of ISIS should have been starkly clear,' said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. 'The organization itself was also carrying out an explicitly clear step-by-step strategy aimed at engendering the conditions that would feed its accelerated rise.'"

From a NYT article titled "Many Missteps in Assessment of ISIS Threat."

50 comments:

aka John said...: I blame Bush!
--Obama; 9/30/14, 12:23 PM
YoungHegelian said...: This is what ISIS wants to do yet again. So far, they're doing better than their ancestors.

Remember just because some state has an army doesn't mean it's any good. The Byzantine Empire had an army, too. A fat lot of good it did them.; 9/30/14, 12:31 PM
Fen said...: Geez. I hope the editor that crafted that headline didn't choke on Obama's cock.; 9/30/14, 12:37 PM
CWJ said...: Yeah ask Belisarius.

The Byzantine (aka Roman) Empire did all right by itself. It managed to survive for nearly a thousand years after the Western half had collapsed.

They understood that keeping trade routes open was more important than nominally governing territory. The latter looks good in the historical atlas. The former looks good in the imperial treasury (from which they bought their army as circumstances allowed).; 9/30/14, 12:45 PM
FleetUSA said...: Fen nailed it. CYA for Choom.; 9/30/14, 12:48 PM
Hagar said...: I think what bothers me most is the blame they are putting on the Iraqi army.
Those guys enlisted on the premise that the U.S. would want to protect what it had won and would stay with a sufficient force to "have their backs" and make sure everyone behind them would behave themselves and make nice with each other.
Obama in their eyes betrayed them when he pulled out the U.S. military and left them on their own, so of course they ran.
There is nothing new about it; armies in that position has melted away since history began.; 9/30/14, 12:52 PM
Alexander said...: Keep in mind that for all the prestige of the Roman Legion, the vast majority of the Roman Empire was carved out by a citizen militia kicking the shit out of the Non-Roman professional army of whoever they were fighting at the time.

From the hills of Rome to the banks of the Delaware, betting on the professional army because it's a professional army is a rookie mistake.; 9/30/14, 12:53 PM
Original Mike said...: "Obama in their eyes betrayed them when he pulled out the U.S. military and left them on their own,"

My eyes too.; 9/30/14, 12:55 PM
RecChief said...: I read today that Obama only attends about 40% of his security briefings.

What to make of that?; 9/30/14, 1:04 PM
Drago said...: RecChief: "I read today that Obama only attends about 40% of his security briefings.

What to make of that?"

He has not yet identified a way to get out of the remaining 40%?; 9/30/14, 1:07 PM
PB said...: Crippled? How about waiting for Obama's announced exit and draw-down?

The NYTimes employs really stupid people.; 9/30/14, 1:08 PM
jacksonjay said...: Can't be bothered to read the article! Same old Shit, I suppose.

Are vacations, fundraisers, White House parties and golf on the list of missteps?

Any mention of the prophet, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, being pushed out as Director of DIA when he warned of ISIS in February?

Any discussion of PDB's?

Is Marie Harf quoted?

Like the Lady Prof, "Now, I'm pretty supportive of Obama's stepped up war on terrorism..." Soon ISIL and Khorason will be decimated and on the run. BadAss BinLadenKillin Swaggy Smiles in on it. NOW he has a strategy! He is actively involved in targeting the JV. Maybe we can write messages to ISIS on our hands and tweet the pics. I hear the barbarians are into social media. I expect a SadFaced Hashtag campaign any day now.

#WeAreSeriousNow!
#SwaggySaidStopIt!; 9/30/14, 1:18 PM
Original Mike said...: "I read today that Obama only attends about 40% of his security briefings. What to make of that?"

Has there been a lazier president than Obama?; 9/30/14, 1:20 PM
furious_a said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/30/14, 1:25 PM
furious_a said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/30/14, 1:33 PM
furious_a said...: #WeAreSeriousNow!
#SwaggySaidStopIt!

#NotDuringMyBackSwing
#StopBeheadingPeople

Complete with the insipid Jen Psaki's thumbs-up selfies.; 9/30/14, 1:35 PM
Anonymous said...: The author has scars on his knees from kneeling so much, yuck.

My fav line:

Mr. Maliki asked for F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters, but Congress was hesitant.

Hint. Congress doesn't fly any Apaches...

Translation: Maliki asked Obama, and Obama didn't want to spoil the AQ is Dead meme, so Obama wasn't willing to make the case to Congress.; 9/30/14, 1:37 PM
jacksonjay said...: "Obama in their eyes betrayed them when he pulled out the U.S. military and left them on their own,"

He betrayed our warriors when he pulled out and let their hard fought victory go to waste. Much, much worse betrayal. What a putz.
No wonder the recent poll result indicating that 70% of our guys don't believe in going back in! I think the lefties misread the result of that poll!; 9/30/14, 1:40 PM
Matt said...: Bush never should have invaded. That much is clear. Feel free to blame Obama but once Iraq was broken there was no way to fix it without serious money and effort - all of which the American public was weary and wary of.; 9/30/14, 1:49 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Saudi Arabia beheaded 19 people in the month we've been discussing ISIS.

Why are we discussing again?; 9/30/14, 2:03 PM
Henry said...: Matt, at some point the alternate histories play themselves out.

If Bush hadn't invaded we might have two tottering Ba'athist regimes instead of one, with the same terrorists utilizing the same territory doing the same thing.

Alternatively, if Bush hadn't invaded we might have a resurgent Ba'athist Iraq lending material support to the terrorists you're pretending would not otherwise exist.

Alternatively, if Bush hadn't invaded, the Patriots might have won those two Super bowls they lost.

Here's an idea. Start with a situation. Examine the proximate causes. Consider history without the unexamined hypotheticals.; 9/30/14, 2:11 PM
traditionalguy said...: Bush used this Sunni part of Iraq as bait for Al Qaeda. The Marines took Fallujah from them and in a peace offer Bush gave it back.

The bombings in Bagdad just got worse as the Sunni went after the Shia there.

Finally Petraus came up with a plan to crush both Sunni and Shia that won The Strong Horse image and peace broke out.

Obama then withdrew the Strong Horse only leaving our equiptment for an Iraq Army under a Shia boss.

As expected that convinced the Sunnis to become their own strong horse and the Saudis sent operatives to become ISIL and kill everybody like strong horses do.

Obama's isolationism created this chaos. And the Sunni/ISIL are now threatening to bomb the USA and Europe if we don't come running to help them again.

What will Jarrett and Obama do now? They usually submit to Iran, which means we will bomb the Sunni/ISIL for them.; 9/30/14, 2:21 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: So is Garage going to disparage the NYT now?

A failure this big and this obvious can't be hidden.; 9/30/14, 2:26 PM
Anonymous said...: Obama never should have helped Libyan rebels, and overthrown Gadhafi, that much is clear. The place has become a hotbed of terrorist activity.

After World War II, displaced Jews never should have been allowed to make such religious claims to ancient territory where many Palestinians were living. The place has become a major sticking point and hotbed of conflict and some terrorist activity.

The Brits, Soviets, and the Americans should never have invaded Afghanistan, least of all the Americans, Australians, Brits, Canadians and Germans to get rid of those shitbird Taliban, especially near the Pakistan border and the FATA region. The place has become a hotbed of terrorist activity.

The Brits should have never carved up Iraq and Syria, remnants of the Ottoman empire, and drawn their current borders for their own self-interest.

The French should never have been such brutal colonial pricks, and Marx and Smith should never have traveled around the globe. Same with the treaty of Westphalia.

Everyone should just learn to respect each other's boundaries and borders, man.

And if there's any disputes, we have a robust international system of laws and procedures that act slowly enough to calm tensions, and swiftly enough to deliver transhumanist universal justice.

These international coalitions and institutions formed by strong nations and actors linking up into a raft of mutual consent, will browbeat bad actors and co-opt everyone else into a New World Order.

There will be pavilions, and meetings, and modern architecture, conferences, chess and math games, Bob Marley music, Brazilian capoeira, and maybe some unisex lyotards.

Maybe it will be like the Olympics, and perhaps just as fascinating, bureaucratic, and corrupt.; 9/30/14, 2:31 PM
Hagar said...: The biggest problem with any discussion of "the war in Iraq" is the absolute refusal to mention that our main enemy in Afghanistan as well as Iraq since 2005, or so, has been the Iranian ayatollah regime.

We may not have territorial ambitions in Iran, but we most certainly need regime change. You cannot negotiate treaties with people who have no intention of holding to them, and even their religion tells them they do not need to keep promises made to non-believers. They are just tactical maneuvers for the moment.; 9/30/14, 2:32 PM
Hagar said...: That U.S. carrier mock-up they are building, supposedly for making a movie, but what if they tow it out into the Indian Ocean and vaporize it with a nuclear device ostensibly delivered with a missile?; 9/30/14, 2:47 PM
Anonymous said...: Hagar,

There are many factions in Iran, but the deep state is controlled by those revolutionary remnants, the Ahmedinejads, and the theocracy, with the support of the Basij.

They torture dissidents, imprison others, monitor, coerce, etc. There's some liberalization in some quarters, but they're not exactly people we can do business with.

Unlike the North Koreans, at least they pretend to notice how their policies look to the rest of the world.

Rouhani, maybe,can make a kind of deal, but look at how Iran continues to act as it pursues its interest, with a thumb in our eye, especially.

Any kind of breakthrough the p5 + 1 were to make would be a real breakthrough, but with so many conditions it's ridiculous.

Is Obama up to that? This administration?

Can they even keep the activist wagon enough for November, which mean elections and a deadline for the foreign policy move on which they've bet a lot of our capital?; 9/30/14, 2:51 PM
Hagar said...: There is an article somwhere else about Gary Kasparov saying Vladimir Putin is by far the biggest menace facing the world, since Putin cannot be defeated by "boots on the ground," i.e. if he faces defeat with conventional weapons, he will go nuclear.

So, defeating Putin has to be a long-term process and largely be fought with cultural media and economic strategies while maintaining a high degree of military readiness, nuclear as well as conventional forces. If he says nuclear war is not "unthinkable," well, what do you know, we don't think it is "unthinkable" either.

And while we do not want to actually do it any more than he does, every little bite he tries to take out of his neighbors need to be firmly met with enough difficulties and unpleasantness within and without Russia to make him think hard about whether it really is a good idea.; 9/30/14, 3:40 PM
Jaq said...: I have said it before, and I will defend Obama to the end on this, if you are serious about your golf game, you have to put in the time!; 9/30/14, 3:42 PM
Paul said...: Obama must have missed the briefing on this to.

'Empty Chair' Obama just got more empty (if that is possible.)

And so Obama betrayed the Kurds?

What's new with that?

He has distabilized the whole Middle East with his Libya assassination of Qaddafi, ousting our former ally, Mubarak, in Egypt (and replacing them with the Muslim Brotherhood), Iraq early withdraw, Iran nuke give in, etc...

And then there is the Ukraine...

But don't worry, there is not a 'smidgen of corruption' in the IRS.

It's almost mid-terms folks. Vote all the Democrats out to show your displeasure with this administration.; 9/30/14, 3:48 PM
RecChief said...: The Crack Emcee said...
Saudi Arabia beheaded 19 people in the month we've been discussing ISIS.

Why are we discussing again?

Because:

1. President Obama said we needed to get out of Iraq as soon as possible when he was running for president, despite being told that leaving too soon would be a destabilizing move.

2. The Democrat Party and the media (but I repeat myself) had a hissy fit when McCain said we needed to stay for 50 or more years to stabilize the region

3.The President and Vice President and numerous administration officials said the War on Terror was over.

4. The President's assertion that ISIL/Isis/whatever was the JV

5. ISIS has beheaded two American citizens.

I could go on, but that is the gist.

You'll notice there is no mention of race in my points regarding the President. I'll leave it to Crack Emcee to somehow spin my brief recitation of facts into my racist problem.; 9/30/14, 3:59 PM
bleh said...: What bullshit.

So this is the current theme. Obama did his job, it's those damned Iraqis who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They must hate black presidents.

What utter bullshit.; 9/30/14, 4:08 PM
bleh said...: Oh, and the American intelligence community failed Obama. Because they hate black presidents, especially ones who are wonderfully competent at crippling terrorist organizations like al Qaeda.; 9/30/14, 4:10 PM
Hagar said...: ISIS has beheaded 3 "Europeans," but in that time they have also shot, knifed, and whatever, several thousand Iraqis, Kurds, Syrians, who got in their way, and buried them in mass graves. Sometimes not bothered to kill the people before the burying.
Nothing to compete with Saddam Hussein or the Assads yet, but give them time, and they will work into it.; 9/30/14, 4:21 PM
Michael McNeil said...: Byzantinist J. B. Bury planned out the entire 8-volume Cambridge Medieval History about a century ago, and wrote the following as part of the introduction to the volume on the history of the medieval Roman Empire known as the Byzantine Empire:

The appreciation of method and system which the Byzantines inherited both from the Greeks and from the Romans is conspicuously shewn in their military establishment and their conduct of war. Here their intellectuality stands out in vivid contrast with the rude dullness displayed in the modes of warfare practised in the West. Tactics were carefully studied, and the treatises on war which the officers used were kept up to date. The tacticians apprehended that it was stupid to employ uniform methods in campaigns against different foes. They observed carefully the military habits of the various people with whom they had to fight — Saracens, Lombards, Franks, Slavs, Hungarians — and thought out different rules for dealing with each. The soldiers were most carefully and efficiently drilled. They understood organisation and the importance of not leaving details to chance, of not neglecting small points in equipment. Their armies were accompanied by ambulances and surgeons. Contrast the feudal armies of the West, ill-disciplined, with no organisation, under leaders who had not the most rudimentary idea of tactics, who put their faith in sheer strength and courage, and attacked all antagonists in exactly the same way. More formidable the Western knights might be than Slavs or Magyars, but in the eyes of a Byzantine officer they were equally rude barbarians who had not yet learned that war is an art which requires intelligence as well as valour. In the period in which the Empire was strong, before it lost the provinces which provided its best recruits, its army was beyond comparison the best fighting machine in Europe. When a Byzantine army was defeated, it was always the incompetence of the general or some indiscretion on his part, never inefficiency or cowardice of the troops, that was to blame. The great disaster of Manzikert (1071), from which perhaps the decline of the Eastern Empire may be dated, was caused by the imbecility of the brave Emperor who was in command. A distinguished student of the art of war has observed that Gibbon's dictum, “the vices of Byzantine armies were inherent, their victories accidental,” is precisely the reverse of the truth. He is perfectly right.

(Unquote); 9/30/14, 4:46 PM
furious_a said...: So, defeating Putin has to be a long-term process and largely be fought with cultural media and economic strategies while maintaining a high degree of military readiness, nuclear as well as conventional forces.

Hunh...just like the Cold War -- who sez history isn't circular?; 9/30/14, 5:07 PM
furious_a said...: The great disaster of Manzikert (1071), from which perhaps the decline of the Eastern Empire may be dated, was caused by the imbecility of the brave Emperor

Well, that and Diogenes' scheming court rivals, one of whom commanded the reserves at Manzikert and ignored orders to relieve the stricken vanguard.; 9/30/14, 5:11 PM
YoungHegelian said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/30/14, 5:45 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Michael,

Nice quote.

However, there seems to be among some historians, perhaps eager to undo the unfair ignorance that surrounds so much of Byzantine history & culture, a tendency to allow the Byzantines to speak far too much in their own voices, and their own voices were heavily infected with self-regard.

The Byzantine army may have studied tactics & strategy, and thought themselves the cat's meow, always better than the barbarians. But look at the map at the link at my 12:31 post. Much of the "Saracens" gains came at the expense of the Byzantines, and they never got those conquered lands back. Rather, they lost more & more land to the "Saracens" until Constantinople itself fell.

The Franks may not have been strategic wizards, but they stopped the Muslims at Tours in 732 & in 1099, they took Jerusalem. That was because the Franks were good at killing people, sometimes on the battlefield, or, as at Jerusalem, just in general.

I gotta go with Gibbon on this one, and that's not something I'd ordinarily do.; 9/30/14, 5:47 PM
Hagar said...: History is linear, but those ignorant of history - or too arrogant to learn from it - are doomed to repeat it.; 9/30/14, 5:58 PM
Beldar said...: "Ashes" is a word that describes dead people. Some, but not all, members and supporters of al Qaeda have been reduced to that stage, but the organization hasn't, nor have its many offshoots and cousins.

The victory lap was always a lie. We're in a multi-decade war that won't magically end just because we say it has.; 9/30/14, 6:19 PM
Michael K said...: "Feel free to blame Obama but once Iraq was broken there was no way to fix it without serious money and effort - all of which the American public was weary and wary of."

OK, I accept. Iraq was broken after 1991 and the Gulf War. In 1991, the world and especially the West was still dependent on Saudi oil and Saddam was about to make it all. I assume that was OK with you.; 9/30/14, 7:30 PM
Anonymous said...: Hagar,

Kasparov is a human rights activist, and an Azeri, so he has specific grievances with Moscow, and Putin.

Just to be kept in mind, despite his moral courage and truths to be told about petro-czar and KGB thug Putin, he has his reasons. Lots of Western liberal narrative to be brought to reality.

There are only alliances, and there are no truth tellers apart from their own interests.

Putin will be a long-term problem, however, and every former satellite knows the benefits they got from Moscow, and the menace from Moscow, especially those with high Russian populations.

They keep an eye on Georgia, Ukraine and Moscow very, very warily.

Also, when you're dealing with Chechens and Turkman Bashi, well, you've got to be hard, and Russian are hard f**kin people, who love a 'strong' leader.; 9/30/14, 7:58 PM
Hagar said...: The Great Russians glory in bragging about all the misery and punishment they can take, and that is not a good thing.

As for the satellites with the high Russian populations, it might be well to reflect a bit on just how they got those populations and perhaps to wonder how those countries came to have room for them.; 9/30/14, 8:27 PM
RecChief said...: "Matt said...
Bush never should have invaded. That much is clear. Feel free to blame Obama but once Iraq was broken there was no way to fix it without serious money and effort - all of which the American public was weary and wary of."

Partly due to the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party...I mean ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/NYT/WAPO etc.... telling them that they were weary of. Not that there weren't mistakes made, but every General who said that we needed to stay was pilloried on the air and in newsprint. Remember how much air time was expended telling the American public that the Surge wouldn't do any good and was initially termed a failure by Kerry, Clinton, Biden, Pelosi when it actually worked? It's not just Obama that I blame, although he didn't lead from behind on that one, it's the whole crowd.; 9/30/14, 8:42 PM
Hagar said...: The pundits are suffering from Pauline Kael syndrome; they are repeating what they are telling each other in the newsroom.

That said, even I am hesitant to talk about going to war under this leadership!

But we can hardly afford to wait with at least starting to re-arm.; 9/30/14, 8:55 PM
Michael McNeil said...: Much of the "Saracens" gains came at the expense of the Byzantines, and they never got those conquered lands back. Rather, they lost more & more land to the "Saracens" until Constantinople itself fell.

Wrong. From about the mid-9th century until the mid-11th, the Byzantine frontiers vis-à-vis the “Saracens” were expanding — and they expanded a lot during that period. If emperor Basil II hadn't concentrated his attention on systematically reducing the Bulgarian empire to servitude during that time frame, Jerusalem would certainly have fallen to the Byzantines a century before the First Crusade actually accomplished it.

Moreover, it was the Fourth Crusade that initially fatally weakened the Byzantine Empire, and the Turks (2-1/2 centuries later) that finally “did it in”, not Saracens.; 9/30/14, 10:15 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Michael,

Did you even bother to look at the link at 12:30? It seems not. The Byzantines lost all their holdings on the south, southeast, & a lot of the southwest of the Mediterranean, and, aside from the parts that today would be part of the modern Levant, they never even came close to getting them back!

As for your assertion that Basil could have taken back the Holy Land, well, why couldn't this good Christian Emperor be bothered to do so? In any case, it's an historical counterfactual, and so we'll never know.

I'm not here to defend the sacking of Constantinople, which was a base & treacherous act. But, sadly, the Byzantines seemed to have a penchant for bringing over large Crusader armies from the West, and then having no clue as to what to do with them when they got there. Didn't the Byzantines learn from the First Crusade that large barbarian armies of Latins were trouble unless properly managed? Well, clearly not.

I'm aware that Constantinople fell to the Seljuk Turks. That's why "Saracens" is in quotes, as a grab bag term for Muslim invaders from the East & South.

Here is yet another time series map to track the waning of the Byzantine Empire. Yes, there's a brief period of waxing between 967 to 1050, but on the whole, it's just a catalog of shrinkage, a shrinkage caused by arrogance & incompetence at the top. And even in their final defeat, the Byzantines slapped away the one hand that might have helped them, to wit (from the Wikipedia article on the Fourth Crusade):

During the middle of the 15th century, the Latin Church (Roman Catholic Church) tried to organise a new crusade aimed at restoring the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, which was gradually being torn down by the advancing Ottoman Turks. The attempt failed, however, as the vast majority of Greek civilians and a growing part of their clergy refused to recognize and accept the short-lived near-union of the Churches of East and West signed at the Council of Florence and Ferrara by the Ecumenical patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople. The Greek population, reacting to the Latin conquest, believed that the Byzantine civilization that revolved around the Orthodox faith would be more secure under Ottoman Islamic rule. Overall, religious-observant Greeks preferred to sacrifice their political freedom and political independence in order to preserve their faith's traditions and rituals in separation from the Roman See.

That sure worked out well for the Greeks, didn't it?; 9/30/14, 11:19 PM
Jaq said...: "We're in a multi-decade war that won't magically end just because we say it has."

For the US, this war goes to the Barbary Pirates, for the West, it goes back to the Holy Roman Empire.; 10/1/14, 5:25 AM
Henry said...: History is vortical.; 10/1/14, 7:49 AM