The Issue: The outbreak of violence in Iraq since the final withdrawal of all US troops last week.
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The last American troops have left Iraq, and, lo and behold, Iraq is under attack (“Behind Iraq’s Chaos,” Peter Brookes, Post-Opinion, Dec. 23).
Everyone except the president and his supporters knew this would happen. Do they just not care?
By bailing out of Iraq before the job was completed, we’ve condemned the Iraqi people to hell.
Who cares? They’re not Americans, and President Obama promised to bring the troops home. Mission accomplished.
Bret Wallach
Hicksville
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Al Qaeda in Iraq has taken credit for the string of deadly bombings in Baghdad, but these Sunni terrorists are playing right into the hands of Shiite Iran.
But let’s not forget that Iran also had no problem killing fellow Shiites (and vice versa) for the eight long years of the Iran-Iraq war.
It won’t be long before Iraq’s ruling Shiites consolidate their power by asking for Iranian help to crush the “Sunni terror threat.”
The promise of oil and a shorter missile flight time to Israel will be too hard for the mullahs to resist.
Tom Goetz
Manhattan
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Obama and the Democrats fought Bush tooth and nail over the war in Iraq, even to the point of aiding and abetting our enemies by declaring defeat.
Yet Obama claims all the credit for our military’s accomplishments since Bush left office.
The sad thing is that after Bush won Iraq, Obama is now losing it with his premature withdrawal and political pandering.
Dave Becher
East Northport
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While Obama enjoyed yet another expensive vacation, he should have given some thought to his decision to cut and run from Iraq.
The takeover of Iraq by Iran is a foregone conclusion.
When that happens, and Obama is timidly observing it all, he’ll have two problems.
First, he’ll have to go into damage-control mode, being the president who “lost” Iraq. Second, he’ll have to figure out how to blame President Bush.
Myron Hecker
New City
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Peter Brookes mentions the “near-total departure” from Iraq of US military personnel, but he fails to mention that the only military presence we will have in Iraq will be a small contingent of Marines to protect our embassy.
Think back to 1979, when Jimmy Carter was president. We also had a “small contingent” of Marines to protect our embassy in Iran.
In those days, attacking a US embassy would have started a war, but not with Carter.
The ayatollah took his measure, and found him wanting.
So, too, will Iran or Iraq. They may wait until Obama is out of office to attack our embassy, but it will come.
And a Republican president will have to undo this mess created by Obama, just as President Reagan did with Carter’s mess.
Charlie Honadel
Staten Island
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I will never stop wondering why Obama was elected.
Bringing our troops home from Iraq may have been a nice gesture, but dealing with al Qaeda is a war that will never cease.
My four brothers and I fought in the war in Europe, where you could almost see the enemy and destroy them with fighter planes and hand-to-hand combat.
But this war has no boundaries, and our enemy kills like hiding cowards.
Richard Homer Bucco
Bloomfield, NJ