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George W. Bush Bashes Obama on Middle East

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K

kmax

Member
In a closed-door meeting with Jewish donors on Saturday night, former President George W. Bush delivered his harshest public criticisms to date against his successor on foreign policy, saying that President Barack Obama is being naive about Iran and the pending nuclear deal and losing the war against the Islamic State.

One attendee at the Republican Jewish Coalition session, held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas with owner Sheldon Adelson in attendance, transcribed large portions of Bush’s remarks. The former president, who rarely ever criticizes Obama in public, at first remarked that the idea of re-entering the political arena was something he didn't want to do. He then proceeded to explain why Obama, in his view, was placing the U.S. in "retreat" around the world. He also said Obama was misreading Iran’s intentions while relaxing sanctions on Tehran too easily.
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Bush said that Obama’s plan to lift sanctions on Iran with a promise that they could snap back in place at any time was not plausible. He also said the deal would be bad for American national security in the long term: “You think the Middle East is chaotic now? Imagine what it looks like for our grandchildren. That’s how Americans should view the deal.”

Bush then went into a detailed criticism of Obama’s policies in fighting the Islamic State and dealing with the chaos in Iraq. On Obama’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of 2011, he quoted Senator Lindsey Graham calling it a “strategic blunder.” Bush signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to withdraw those troops, but the idea had been to negotiate a new status of forces agreement to keep U.S. forces there past 2011. The Obama administration tried and failed to negotiate such an agreement.
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Bush said he views the rise of the Islamic State as al-Qaeda’s "second act” and that they may have changed the name but that murdering innocents is still the favored tactic. He defended his own administration’s handling of terrorism, noting that the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was captured on his watch: “Just remember the guy who slit Danny Pearl’s throat is in Gitmo, and now they're doing it on TV.”

Obama promised to degrade and destroy Islamic State's forces but then didn’t develop a strategy to complete the mission, Bush said. He said that if you have a military goal and you mean it, “you call in your military and say ‘What’s your plan?’ ” He indirectly touted his own decision to surge troops to Iraq in 2007, by saying, “When the plan wasn’t working in Iraq, we changed.”

“In order to be an effective president ... when you say something you have to mean it,” he said. “You gotta kill em.”

Regarding Hillary Clinton, Bush said it will be crucial how she plays her relationship with the president. She will eventually have to choose between running on the Obama administration’s policies or running against them. If she defends them, she's admitting failure, he said, but if she doesn't she's blaming the president.

For George W. Bush, the remarks in Vegas showed he has little respect for how the current president is running the world. He also revealed that he takes little responsibility for the policies that he put in place that contributed to the current state of affairs.
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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-27/george-w-bush-bashes-obama-on-middle-east

bush-stupid-facial-expressions.jpg
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
“You think the deficit is low now? Imagine what it looks like for our grandchildren. That’s how Americans should view the deal.”
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
Why is it that every republican is acting like the deal is "In exchange for lifting sanctions against Iran, Iran gets to develop a nuclear bomb?"



The deal is that sanctions are lifted if they stop their nuclear programs!
 
G

GhostTrick

Banned
I wont talk about George W. Bush specifically but, I always found funny how, in politics, people who are no longer in function ALWAYS know what to do, while they were clueless when in charge.
 
B

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
mission%20accomplished%20banner%2023423423.jpg


Didn't Bush fix everything before leaving office? Thanks Obama
 
H

HylianTom

Banned
Please, please, please come out and play for this election cycle. If Americans get their collective memory jogged a bit, that'd be fantastic.
 
C

Coriolanus

Banned
GaimeGuy said:
Why is it that every republican is acting like the deal is "In exchange for lifting sanctions against Iran, Iran gets to develop a nuclear bomb?"



The deal is that sanctions are lifted if they stop their nuclear programs!
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What can he do, admit that a guy that's closer each day to telling bibi to get fucked neutralized israel's great satan?
 
K

Kenshin001

Member
Bush said he views the rise of the Islamic State as al-Qaeda’s "second act” and that they may have changed the name but that murdering innocents is still the favored tactic. He defended his own administration’s handling of terrorism, noting that the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was captured on his watch: “Just remember the guy who slit Danny Pearl’s throat is in Gitmo, and now they're doing it on TV.”
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On his watch there was the worst terrorist attack in US history and Bin Laden remained at large. The man is in no position to be casting judgement whatsoever.
 
Theonik

Theonik

Member
GhostTrick said:
I wont talk about George W. Bush specifically but, I always found funny how, in politics, people who are no longer in function ALWAYS know what to do, while they were clueless when in charge.
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It is funnier when they are the architects of the problem to begin with.
 
P

ProfessorMoran

Member
Freedom = $1.05 said:
"this guy is really bad at fixing my mistakes"
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Obama basically gave back everything gained through the surge in Iraq and that country is a fucking mess with Iranian forces running around, Syria is a mess, Afghanistan is a mess, Yemen is a mess, Libya is a mess, six and a half years in office and at some point Obama has to take some responsibility for making the middle east a complete clusterfuck, there's no way around it.
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
Also all George Bush did for Iran is pass sanctions and push them into a corner. It did absolutely nothing to deter them from pursuing uranium enrichment programs, since such technology would, whether used for civilian energy programs (as Iran claims) or weapons programs (as Bush's wonderful intelligence community claimed), give Iran extra bargaining power and leverage on the international stage.

It's funny George Bush has the audacity to criticize Obama on American safety when the largest terrorist attack in modern history on the planet occurred under Bush's watch, on American soil, and Bush sat idly by while North Korea successfully developed nuclear weapons, passed ineffective sanctions against Iran, and destabilized the middle east through the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the creation of ISIS as a result of these actions.

Fuck you George.
 
O

otapnam

Member
Kenshin001 said:
On his watch there was the worst terrorist attack in US history and Bin Laden remained at large. The man is in no position to be casting judgement whatsoever.
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We can start blaming clinton then wb then reagan then carter then everyone rider before if you want

Don't forget clinton pussied out on bombing bin laden. TWICE
 
W

Waaghals

Member
ProfessorMoran said:
Obama basically gave back everything gained through the surge in Iraq and that country is a fucking mess with Iranian forces running around, Syria is a mess, Yemen is a mess, Libia is a mess, six and a half years in office and at some point Obama has to take some responsibility for making the middle east a complete clusterfuck, there's no way around it.
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The Surge was the only bright point in a situation that had been horribly mismanaged from the very beginning. It was the Bush-admin's fault that a long term American presence was needed in the first place.

If the Bush-administration had been anywhere near competent, there would not have been any Iraq-situation for Obama to mess up in the first place.
 
K

Kojirospath

Member
ProfessorMoran said:
Obama basically gave back everything gained through the surge in Iraq and that country is a fucking mess with Iranian forces running around, Syria is a mess, Yemen is a mess, Libia is a mess, six and a half years in office and at some point Obama has to take some responsibility for making the middle east a complete clusterfuck, there's no way around it.
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Iraq after the war always was a clustercuck. Nothing was fixed, saved or whatever. Pulling out was smart from a domestic viewpoint but the situation was untenable. Guess who was responsible for said situation. Iraq under Saddam was no picnic but atleast it was stable.
 
C

Coriolanus

Banned
ProfessorMoran said:
Obama basically gave back everything gained through the surge in Iraq and that country is a fucking mess with Iranian forces running around, Syria is a mess, Afghanistan is a mess, Yemen is a mess, Libia is a mess, six and a half years in office and at some point Obama has to take some responsibility for making the middle east a complete clusterfuck, there's no way around it.
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You ignoring the bit where the exit strategy was defined by W.?
You also ignoring the bit where the Iraqi leadership told the US to get fucked?
Afghanistan has never stopped being a mess, and the same goes for syria, yemen or libia. Dude had the good sense to not get the US involved in that mess, and you trying to pin it on him?

Come on breh.
 
F

Freedom = $1.05

Banned
ProfessorMoran said:
Obama basically gave back everything gained through the surge in Iraq and that country is a fucking mess with Iranian forces running around, Syria is a mess, Afghanistan is a mess, Yemen is a mess, Libia is a mess, six and a half years in office and at some point Obama has to take some responsibility for making the middle east a complete clusterfuck, there's no way around it.
Click to expand...

So why blame Obama and not blame the Middle East as a whole given that neither had any say regarding the Iraqi Invasion?
 
I

inky

Member
“You think the Middle East is chaotic now? Imagine what it looks like for our grandchildren. That’s how Americans should view the deal.”

And you and your dad know all about that, huh?
 
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