Discussion for article #236627
Another guy not busy sucking up to Jeb Bush for a job post-2016. He is toast.
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“I think the question is: you can’t change the past. You can try to learn from the past but you can’t changed what happened. The question is how you deal with Iraq in the present?” McCaul said. "I would have had a Status of Forces agreement. That was a mistake too.
We did have a Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq. GWB signed off on it. It stated we would be out by 2011. Blaming Obama for that one is a mistake, Michael. But it’s one you won’t ever admit to.
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And more importantly, JEB continues to be bringing up the rear in polling. PPP’s recent polling in Washington has him only above Christie, with Walker once again holding pretty steady as the leader. Every state poll I am seeing keeps saying this same story, and it gets markedly worse once you dive into the cross tabs. Walker not only always has the lead, he has a bigger lead with voters that identify as “more conservative”, i.e. the ones most likely to vote in primaries. And JEB continually has horrible favorable numbers, being upside down in every poll I have seen so far.
I think the biggest problem for him in his handling of the Iraq question with multiple answers, is it raises concerns that many have that are on the fence about him being a squish. The base is deeply suspicious of him concerning Common Core and Immigration, and if they see him changing his answers daily on what everyone considers such an easy question, then it only reinforces the notion that they can’t trust him on those positions, either.
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I would have had a Status of Forces agreement.
Please elaborate with some details, Mr. Chairman.
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“The base is deeply suspicious of him concerning
Common Core and Immigration, and if they see him changing his answers
daily on what everyone considers such an easy question, then it only
reinforces the notion that they can’t trust him on those positions,
either.”
True. Jebya is never going to convince the GOP base that he is one of them. With his Iraq non-answer he has doomed any prospects he might have had. Now both the base and the establishment wings (can’t even answer a question he should have seen coming for 12 years) have reason to distrust him.
as pointed out above, we did have a SOFA. What Obama was trying to negotiate with Maliki (which Bush left unsettled when he signed the SOFA) was to amend the SOFA to allow immunity for US troops from local prosecution. No US troops will be stationed in any country that would allow the local justice system to try US soldiers outside the military justice system, for the simple reason that to do so would allow malicious prosecutions on trumped-up charges from those who wish to make a political point regarding having these troops stationed in their country.
Maliki refused. That left Obama no choice but to follow the previously-agreed-upon SOFA. We allegedly went to war to liberate Iraq and give them a democracy, not to make them a client state that does whatever Washington decides.
MISTAKES WERE MADE!
(by nameless low level officials in the bowels of the agency - see Rice, Condi http://tinyurl.com/k8nma2p - this when she was talking about the yellow cake)
This whole line of defense is not new. Like everything else with the GOP it’s only a slightly tweaked version of what they have been doing again and again and again. Yet it’s treated as new every single time
Iraq is screwed for the foreseeable future. JEBya’s strategic views on Iran, and Obamatrade A/K/A TPP, would be more interesting.
“…how are you going to stabilize that region? Can we afford to leave it destabilized?”
The more pertinent question is can we stabilize it? That seems to be highly doubtful, and given the glowing outcome of our 2003 invasion of the region, any such attempt would only compound the disaster the we have already created. The President is right, Iraq and its neighbors need to take responsibility for their own security and stability, Sacrificing more American lives in that pursuit would be a fool’s errand.