Last week, the political world was stunned by the ineptitude of yet another Bush family member on Iraq.
This time it was Jeb Bush, who responded to a question of whether he would have launched the Iraq War knowing Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. Problematically, he answered the question four different ways in four days – yes, maybe, no comment and finally no.
This week, the headlines have been dominated by continued gains of ISIS in Iraq, including taking cities U.S. troops fought so hard to hold less than 10 years ago.
At first I thought that Jeb’s misstatements on the Iraq War were just a three-day news story, soon to be forgotten as the presidential campaign rolls on. However, if ISIS continues to gain territory and the Iraqi army we trained continues to desert their posts at every turn while we sit on our hands, this issue will not go away and the candidates better get their act together on Iraq.
The situation resembles what transpired in Vietnam in 1975. After the U.S. walked away from the war against North Vietnam two years earlier and refused to help when the fighting started again, the weak South Vietnamese forces fell quickly and the war was lost.
However, the fall of Vietnam arguably had less impact on U.S. interests as a whole than the fall of Iraq will. It was a massive blow in the Cold War but there was no direct threat to our national security. An Iraq dominated by ISIS would pose the same threat as Afghanistan did in 2001 – a failed state in which terrorists are free to organize and launch attacks on America and it’s allies.
So the question remains: what to do with Iraq? This topic looms large over the presidential election, and it does not favor Jeb Bush. After all, it was his brother’s misstatements on Iraq that started us down the rabbit hole in the first place.
It’s a tough one for the Republican Party overall, as they were the primary champions of the Iraq War. Fortunately for them, most of their candidates and likely candidates have sharply disavowed the initial faulty decision-making. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party also have their share of problems with the region, from her failed foreign policy initiatives to Obama’s withdrawal of all troops in 2011 that many blame for the current mess.
The next step, for both sides, is to articulate a strategy for taking on this new threat and language to talk about this complicated and vital issue. How does a candidate disavow the blunders in Iraq while acknowledging the sacrifice of U.S. troops? How do we avoid another ground war while making sure ISIS doesn’t have a sanctuary? These are not easy questions, but ones that must be confronted.
It looks like Iraq will play a critical role in yet another presidential election. Candidates need a solution – how do we avoid the mistakes made before and move ahead? They should start by answering basic questions with straight answers. We can’t afford any more mistakes when it comes to Iraq, whether in word or deed.