It's Obama's Fault

++Don't worry Iraq was stable by the end of W's reign and it was blown by "my guy". The e-mail wars heated up last night and early this morning.

++Be prepared for a whole year of blaming Obama for "allowing" ISIS to romp over Iraq and Syria. 

++Louie Gohmert said that W would have reconsidered Iraq if he knew Obama would become President. 

++Jeb Bush said Iraq was stable when his brother left office. 

++I don't know how quick the right-wing talking points get disseminated but this one was really quick. I even got that we got suckered into Iraq by the United Nations.

++Junior neo-cons like Eliot Cohen tried to dismiss criticisms of Iraq by saying it now is about what do we do going forward. 

++The great ISIS problem turns out to have started in 2006. At that time the Pentagon said that Al Qaeda in Iraq made it up and that al-Baghdadi was a fictitious person. Which is probably how the rumor he was an Israeli character actor started. 

++There has been alot of pushback at Dailykos and other Democratic websites on the various wrong assertions about when the Iraq troubles started. Particularly interesting have been analyses of the much-vaunted "Surge" and how it actually empowered the Shi'ite militias and why the Sunnis have been so reluctant to fight against ISIS.

++Ian Bremmer of the Euroasian Group has said that President Obama's foreign policy failures have nothing to do with unilateralism or multilateralism but implementation. He claims a Great Power must dictate what it wants to influence events and points to China's clear geostrategic vision. 

++Meanwhile the Pentagon sold $1.9 billion of bunker buster bombs and missile defense materials to Israel to pacify Israel about the Iran nuclear deal and the arms sales by the United States to the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. 

++Oyy,the Imperial Post is upset that ISIS took Anbar and Palyrma in Syria. So the war drums beat along the Potomac again.  But Congress still doesn't know what it wants from the Authorization of Force amendment.

++To focus on the main issues pre-occupying America, Trey Gowdy actually had two US Marshalls deliver a subpoena to Sid Blumenthal's house where they gave it to his wife. But what was unusual was that the Benghazi Committee didn't even ask Sid whether he would testify voluntarily.  This is because of #Benghazi!" and that Blumenthal had sent Hillary e-mails about Libya. Of course, it is also because the Right has always had Sid in its targets. 

++A rational discussion about the Iraq War and its implications for US policy would be welcomed. But it isn't going to happen as the GOP presidential race gets underway. Remember that this coming election will be the first that a Republican nominee will overtly promise war. W. didn't, his father didn't,Reagan didn't. But this crowd will.

++In my view, the Obama years end when the drumbeats of war become dominant in our political discourse.