The French attack

[spence]

Originally Posted by fishpoopoo

Uh, I dunno if this fact is appreciated by the general public. They seem to have an impression of ISIS being jihadist radicals. Actually, the leadership isn't.

So we're not at war with jihadists? Somebody had better tell Jim.

Both Obama and Hillary had plenty of time to fix this before ISIS became an issue. They had every opportunity to make simple fixes.

Iraqi Baathist officials were Sunni but largely secular. Wouldn't have been much of a stink to re-instate them.

They made the situation worse by withdrawing and doing nothing else.

Not much of a stink to re-instate Baathist officials? That's beyond idealistic thinking. It's silly actually.

As for those "simple fixes." I assume you mean like unilateral involvement in the Syrian civil war? Letting US troops stay in Iraq governed by Iraqi law?

This is a big and complex issue without any easy fixes. Obama's policy may have been cautious and assumed the Iraqi's would actually use the equipment we gave them. But the flip side quickly puts us into another protracted and messy war largely isolated from the International community.