It may seem that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is reprimanding President Trump for his decision to withdraw troops from Syria, but reading his opinion piece in WaPo reveals that this relatively easy decision to make is also about trying to splash mud on, you guessed it, the Democrats:
Withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria is a grave strategic mistake. It will leave the American people and homeland less safe, embolden our enemies, and weaken important alliances. Sadly, the recently announced pullout risks repeating the Obama administration’s reckless withdrawal from Iraq, which facilitated the rise of the Islamic State in the first place.
And
We saw humanitarian disaster and a terrorist free-for-all after we abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, laying the groundwork for 9/11. We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama’s retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon our partners and retreat from these conflicts before they are won.
Regardless of what you think of Obama’s Libya/Syria policy, also denigrated by McConnell, but arguably resulting in the removal of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, we should first insist on the full truth from the writer. And what is that?
President Obama was obligated to leave Iraq by the legal decisions of his predecessor in office, Republican President Bush, when the latter signed the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, which called for the removal of all American military personnel from Iraq by the end of the 2011, with which President Obama duly complied.
Suggesting President Obama simply left on a capricious whim, or due to ideological requirements, is a fraudulent insinuation, an insinuation that an intellectually honest man would be ashamed of making, and who would make a full apology. I misdoubt Moscow Mitch will feel any such self-doubt.
To be fair, Obama could have tried to negotiate to keep troops in Iraq, and in fact he did. Perhaps he could have tried harder. The fact remains, though, that the government of Iraq had to be given the authority to kick us out, or be little more than a puppet government, and us as the “thumb” of the puppet was neither a good nor honorable position. Obama’s compliance was, in fact, the actions of an honorable man.
In fact, I do not see this opinion piece as being of any sort of bold statement in the best interests of the country, and to the detriment of his own. McConnell is a highly experienced political operator who is up for re-election in 2020, and is not well-regarded in his own state. I think this piece is meant to accomplish two things.
- Discredit the Democrats. In this piece, McConnell has subtly attempted to equate the dubious actions of President Trump with former President Obama, a Democrat. The uproar over Syria is, appropriately, deafening, and while Trump and his allies are frantically defending his actions, McConnell is taking this chance to turn a poor situation into a moral equivalence with the Democrats. The most dangerous position for the Republicans is to be perceived as morally inferior to their opponents. If it takes a lie or an omission to do it, McConnell certainly isn’t above it. He wants voters to think the Democrats have been just as despicable as Trump and the Republicans. It’s an unfortunate political tactic as old as the hills – or at least that oldest denizen of the swamp, Senator McConnell.
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Gallup’s Trump Job Approval poll
Below 40% again.Put some space between McConnell and President Trump. Rumor has it that there’s hardly a GOP Senator, besides Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who regards President Trump as anything more than an ally of convenience. McConnell, aware of Trump’s chronically low nation-wide approval in all respectable polls, and reportedly in trouble in his own re-election bid, has decided that convenience is eroding. This opinion piece is something he can point at that shows he’s independent of a President currently under threat of impeachment by the House. Indeed, if Impeachment is approved by the House, I do not think it’s a certainty that McConnell, if his state-wide polls show him still in trouble due to his perceived alliance with the President, wouldn’t throw the President under the bus and use the resultant political capital to fuel his drive to re-election. He’s cold-blooded enough to do it, while proclaiming he did it for the country – never mind the fact that he spent three full years supporting a President who show incompetence, malicious or not, in his leadership of the country.
This opinion piece isn’t interesting for its putative purpose, but for those partisan purposes McConnell requires, as he maneuvers for yet another term in the Senate. Keep that in mind whenever reading anything, or hearing anything, from him.
