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Al Qaeda controls more territory than ever in Middle East

American said:
He's supposedly SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ****ing brilliant, it should be a piece of cake for him to figure out. Especially with foreign policy genius, Joe Biden.
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Any day now, Im sure.
 
iliveonramen said:
Ehh....

Iran-People were calling for military strike or even invasion of Iran. As of now...a person has been elected that has been pursuing a thawing of relations with the US. What should he of done? A more hawkish stance could of potentially involved us in yet another middle east war.

Iran-people? we didn't need to invade-we needed to make it known we support those that want democracy-thats all. Our "less-hawkish" :roll: response has gotten us a dictatorial theocracy speeding towards a nuke like its cool-but we know you dont mind that one bit.

Syria- It's either back the regime or back the rebellion. Both are problematic. Whats problematic is that the choice to help neither appears to have escaped you.
Egypt-So he should of supported Assad against a popular protest? Not assad, he supported the islamists who promptly starting killing Christians and destroying the constitution-its amazing more people didn't die. Our standing is diminished directly because of our weak president.


They were roaming those areas under Bush. Obama has expanded drone strikes in those countries and expanded programs where we work with governments to get those guys. I'm not sure what else he could do or how his policies are any different than Bush's.
Not really, we are greatly expanding our presence there-its taken years of quietly establishing these bases or permission to fly over these nations.

AQ will never be wiped out. Terrorism will never be wiped out. The US strategy is to use drone strikes and work with other countries to keep these guys on the run and from establishing the sort of network they had pre-9/11. You can definitely get some weapons and cause problems while hiding but you can't organize the sort of attacks they did when they had a formal base of operation. . I'm not sure exactly what the expectation is. A lot of the events you criticize him are things that would of happened regardless of president.
Who said it would be wiped out? Can we agree that an expanding AQ is moving in the wrong direction?

I'm not sure what you would propose or how he messed up in Iran, Syria, (you explained Egypt), Libya, or the states that have terrorist running wild. Maybe some alternatives to his policies would help out. Maybe just criticizing the Presidents every move works in some circles but I haven't seen much of a response on what he should do...other than Bomb Iran, send arms to the Syrian rebels, Support Assad (and conservatives were not saying this during the protests)...and nothing on what he should be doing elsewhere.
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Libya was an inconsistent cluster, hacked together by an incompetent administration clearly winging it. So was Syria.
 
American said:
No, it's because he doesn't have a useful foreign policy in dealing with this, like most liberals. Liberals are worthless when it comes to getting tough. Even his drone strike crusade hasn't hurt them enough.
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Obama thinks badly mimicking a leader is an acceptable substitute.
 
US foreign policy transcends administrations. Presidents aren't in charge of it.
 
US Conservative said:
View attachment 67159813

(CNN) -- From around Aleppo in western Syria to small areas of Falluja in central Iraq, al Qaeda now controls territory that stretches more than 400 miles across the heart of the Middle East, according to English and Arab language news accounts as well as accounts on jihadist websites.

Indeed, al Qaeda appears to control more territory in the Arab world than it has done at any time in its history.


Cont... Bergen: Al Qaeda controls more territory than ever in Middle East - CNN.com



So more masterful foreign policy from the Obama administration. Under them we have seen a spread of not just AQ but islamic fundamentalism throughout Asia and Africa. And when our weak leader picks a position-its SUPPORTING these types of characters.

Think back to the campaign promises. Think forward to all the innocent people throughout the world that are suffering because these thugs are running the show.
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yes alquaeda does have more power now than ever.

but most of its rise is from continuing drone strikes and selective use of the coin strategy.the coin strategy enable us to leave iraq,and bush didnt use it til later towards the end.obama used it at first but later only used it for ground troops but blatently ignored it for drone strikes.

since vietnam insurgency fighting has been a major issue,since iraq and afghanistan,insurgency has been the primary way of fighting,killing enemies doesnt weaken an insurgency by itself,and improperly executed strengthens the enemy,they hide among the population as a shield,knowing civilians will die to kill them,then they use propoganda to show us as evil and get more recruits than they lost.

we had a good coin strategy by gen petraeus that worked great,only sad that after its success it was abandoned to repeat the strategies that failed since vietnam.
 
Dr. Chuckles said:
while I'm not going to blame Obama for the situation in the "larger" ME, his foreign policy hasn't exactly been coherent. Honestly, it seems rather scatterbrained and reactive, with no real larger goal
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If that is true, was also can't congrats him for the successes in the middle east. Now, let me think of one...

In seriousness, as the phrase goes, "the buck stops here". If he's going to take credit for killing UBL, when it was a decade long process to track him down, then it's only fair he gets blamed for the deteriorating situations in the ME.. even if all he did was stand back and watch it implode.
 
US Conservative said:
View attachment 67159813

(CNN) -- From around Aleppo in western Syria to small areas of Falluja in central Iraq, al Qaeda now controls territory that stretches more than 400 miles across the heart of the Middle East, according to English and Arab language news accounts as well as accounts on jihadist websites.

Indeed, al Qaeda appears to control more territory in the Arab world than it has done at any time in its history.


Cont... Bergen: Al Qaeda controls more territory than ever in Middle East - CNN.com



So more masterful foreign policy from the Obama administration. Under them we have seen a spread of not just AQ but islamic fundamentalism throughout Asia and Africa. And when our weak leader picks a position-its SUPPORTING these types of characters.

Think back to the campaign promises. Think forward to all the innocent people throughout the world that are suffering because these thugs are running the show.
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this does not really surprise me.
 
Hamster Buddha said:
If that is true, was also can't congrats him for the successes in the middle east. Now, let me think of one...

In seriousness, as the phrase goes, "the buck stops here". If he's going to take credit for killing UBL, when it was a decade long process to track him down, then it's only fair he gets blamed for the deteriorating situations in the ME.. even if all he did was stand back and watch it implode.
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the majority of time you don't even seem to comprehend what you respond to
 
US Conservative said:
So Bush wasn't in charge? Thats not what Obama keeps saying.

Nobodies buying the deflection.
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Yeah I know the whole "Im the decider" meme, but no. Corporate America sets foreign policy and they are always there. Presidents come and go. You think US foreign policy is a yoyo?
 
Montecresto said:
Yeah I know the whole "Im the decider" meme, but no. Corporate America sets foreign policy and they are always there. Presidents come and go. You think US foreign policy is a yoyo?
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Obama took credit for putting "AQ on the run".

Are you suggesting he was lying in taking credit? If he took credit then, why isn't he responsible now?
 
US Conservative said:
Obama took credit for putting "AQ on the run".

Are you suggesting he was lying in taking credit? If he took credit then, why isn't he responsible now?
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You attribute too much to presidents, good and bad.
 
American said:
He's supposedly SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ****ing brilliant, it should be a piece of cake for him to figure out. Especially with foreign policy genius, Joe Biden.
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Probably his solution would be to give them their own country.
 
Sometimes I think Al Qaeda just means "bad guy Muslims."
 
US Conservative said:
I only hear this excuse when its a liberal president doing what they do-lowering expectations.
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Except that I'm no liberal and have far more criticism of this president than you.
 
AQ is a function of the mujahideen war in Afganistan, while Wahhabism is an export from Saudi Arabia to Paki.
It's splitting hairs, not really matter.

Syria is changing by the minute almost al-Nursa and ISIS are no longer allied -the brutality of ISIS seems to have sickened even al_Nursa..

It's beyond complicated, and I'm not going to even try to trace it.

I did read the FSA or the Islamic Front (not sure) is taking back Aleppo, though ISIL is still big in southern Syria.

This just goes on, i'm not really able to distinguish coalitions anymore, they change almost weekly.

Sufffice to say the spillover from Syria has allowed the gains in Anbar province - which is Sunni, which is at war with Shi'a. which is the governemce of Iraq.

...............not much we can do ( or should do -we've already FUBAR'd Iraq) other then to train up some Iraqi forces in Jordan (special ops)
and continue to support the Iraqi army.

The Iraqi army JUST LIKE UNDER SADDAM is the unifying force there.
 
US Conservative said:
Obama took credit for putting "AQ on the run".

Are you suggesting he was lying in taking credit? If he took credit then, why isn't he responsible now?
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All presidents take credit when things go the way they like and shelter themselves from responsibility when they don't. Obama will leave office but US foreign policy will continue to be a destabilising force in the ME, regardless of who is president.
 
Which would describe "leading from behind", running away. or ignoring the problem? That will be the Obama foreign policy legacy. I can remember Clinton saying that America had too much power in the world. Obama certainly believes that. The probably with being the foremost superpower that America once was, is that when there is no global peace keeper every nation is empowered to flex their muscle.

Having said that, here's my problem. I don't believe that we should be the worlds peace keeper. I don't think we should spend money on regional disputes. What I believe we should do is save the money and build the strongest military imaginable and use it to negotiate peace, not fight for it.
 
sawdust said:
Which would describe "leading from behind", running away. or ignoring the problem? That will be the Obama foreign policy legacy. I can remember Clinton saying that America had too much power in the world. Obama certainly believes that. The probably with being the foremost superpower that America once was, is that when there is no global peace keeper every nation is empowered to flex their muscle.

Having said that, here's my problem. I don't believe that we should be the worlds peace keeper. I don't think we should spend money on regional disputes. What I believe we should do is save the money and build the strongest military imaginable and use it to negotiate peace, not fight for it.
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If you assemble the strongest military imaginable and try to negotiate peace and it fails then what? If everyone knows that big military is just for show then that military doesn't matter.
 
Kreton said:
If you assemble the strongest military imaginable and try to negotiate peace and it fails then what? If everyone knows that big military is just for show then that military doesn't matter.
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I have an issue with the use of our military. I think that if you fight a war, you should fight to win it. There should be no rules of engagement which restrict the use of force in situations where troops on the ground could be killed. That doesn't mean that I believe we should intentionally harm civilians.

I also believe that the use of our military should be proportional. In Afghanistan we should have used the full force of our military to obliterate Alqueda training camps and then we should have left. I don't know why that war morphed into a fight against the Taliban, even though the Taliban suck. I believe that Iraq didn't pose an immediate threat to American interests and invading them was a mistake.

Having said that, when war is necessary, we have the technological and physical ability to make short work of it if we unleash the full power of our military on an aggressor nation. A smart display of that ability gives us a strong bargaining position and I think that many of the worlds squabbles could be handled by negotiation and threat of force.

As it stands now, we are viewed as a paper tiger. All talk and no action. Russia saved us from making a mistake is Syria because the world knows that Russia doesn't play. We are no longer viewed as that resolute by the world community and we have given up our strength for a weak foreign policy that confuses our allies and makes our foes not take us seriously. That's the consequence of leading from behind.
 
sawdust said:
I have an issue with the use of our military. I think that if you fight a war, you should fight to win it. There should be no rules of engagement which restrict the use of force in situations where troops on the ground could be killed. That doesn't mean that I believe we should intentionally harm civilians.

I also believe that the use of our military should be proportional. In Afghanistan we should have used the full force of our military to obliterate Alqueda training camps and then we should have left. I don't know why that war morphed into a fight against the Taliban, even though the Taliban suck. I believe that Iraq didn't pose an immediate threat to American interests and invading them was a mistake.

Having said that, when war is necessary, we have the technological and physical ability to make short work of it if we unleash the full power of our military on an aggressor nation. A smart display of that ability gives us a strong bargaining position and I think that many of the worlds squabbles could be handled by negotiation and threat of force.

As it stands now, we are viewed as a paper tiger. All talk and no action. Russia saved us from making a mistake is Syria because the world knows that Russia doesn't play. We are no longer viewed as that resolute by the world community and we have given up our strength for a weak foreign policy that confuses our allies and makes our foes not take us seriously. That's the consequence of leading from behind.
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well said.
 
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