New Obama War

New Obama War! What to do.

Yesterday, President Obama announced he's going to crawl back into the Iraq war with another 450 U.S. troops on the ground.
You'd think this might be the subject of heated debate. But the fact is everyone — including the president himself — admits it's an incomplete strategy, a token gesture, and, in effect, an exercise in futility.

Nor do you have to be a master military strategist to understand why. Just go back to recent history ...
Iraq, mid-2000s. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops battle a relatively weak, splintered al-Qaeda in Iraq. The enemy holds no territory, has virtually no weapons, no money, and little popular support. Yet, the U.S. is still unable to stop the nation from crumbling into civil war.
January, 2007. Almost 132,000 U.S. troops are on the ground in Iraq. But it's still not enough to stop the country from coming unglued. The decision is made to begin a great troop surge.
September, 2007. The troop surge hits its peak at 168,000. Sunni tribes join the battle against al-Qaeda and other extremists. The country is finally stabilized.
Now, fast-forward to today, and brace yourself for some very shocking facts:

Fact #1. Even after the deployment the president just announced yesterday, the U.S. will still have only 3,500 troops on the ground in Iraq — only half in a training role, none in a combat role. Back in 2007, the U.S. had nearly FIFTY times more.
Fact #2. The enemy, previously made up of terrorist cells, is now a terrorist nation. It is hundreds of times stronger — in terms of combatants, weapons, funding, territory, organization and tacit popular acceptance or support.
Fact #3. No one — in the Iraqi government, among the militias, or even with the thousands of allied bombing missions — has been able to stop the enemy's advance.
Fact #4. The fall of Baghdad to the Islamic State is no less likely today than the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces 40 years ago.
This could destabilize the region — and the entire world — in unpredictable ways. America's action — or lack of action — could set off a chain of events that disrupt and destroy regimes from Asia to Europe.
And yet, what else can we do?




This dramatic expansion of the Middle East wars, especially with new stepped-up involvement by Saudi Arabia and other rich Persian Gulf countries, can only mean that billions more petrodollars will seek safety here in the United States.



Source:
Weiss Research founder Martin D. Weiss