First of all, how is it that you think that the above is anywhere close to simply getting out of the region?old salt wrote:The alternative was to not give the Cairo speech, seat the Muslim Brotherhood in the front row, then call for regime change in Egypt & abandon Mubarak.
The alternative was not to call for regime change & encourage the Syrians to overthrow Assad if we weren't going to support them (prompting our Amb to resign).
The alternative was not to support anti-Quadaffi rebels in Libya if we were just going to lead from behind & support them in the aftermath.
The alternative was to not withdraw a residual force from Iraq & leave the door wide open for ISIS.
You're basically griping about all the things that Obama did to interject America IN to the ME. That's not leaving. We've never tried that.
And out of all the stuff Obama did, drawing the idiots in ISIS out into the open for a mass slaughter because they thought this was their chance to have their own country was the best thing he's done. How many of them did we kill? Tens of thousands of the most radical elements in the ME are now pushing up daisies. That's great, right?
Not to mention that you have an entire generation of radicals who now know that they can never have that.....they'll be wiped out if they try. Pretty good dividends considering how few American casualties were needed to wipe out that many potential terrorists.
In short, you just told me that nope, we never tried another path. Obama took the same stupid, pointless, ridiculous path that his predecessors did: the ol' "we just need to arm the right guys" game. Calling for regime change. And you didn't mention all the droning Obama did.
That's NOT withdrawal. Not even close.