{"id":17477,"date":"2014-06-15T12:33:21","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T16:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=17477"},"modified":"2014-06-15T12:42:08","modified_gmt":"2014-06-15T16:42:08","slug":"in-extremists-iraq-rise-americas-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2014\/06\/15\/in-extremists-iraq-rise-americas-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"In Extremists\u2019 Iraq Rise, America\u2019s Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The New Yorker<\/em> has the article <a title=\"The New Yorker article\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/newsdesk\/2014\/06\/iraq-extremists-mosul-american-invasion-legacy.html\" target=\"_blank\">In Extremists\u2019 Iraq Rise, America\u2019s Legacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Today, many Iraqis, including some close to Maliki, say that a small force of American soldiers\u2014working in non-combat roles\u2014would have provided a crucial stabilizing factor that is now missing from Iraq. Sami al-Askari, a Maliki confidant, told me for my article this spring, \u201cIf you had a few hundred here, not even a few thousand, they would be co\u00f6perating with you, and they would become your partners.\u201d President Obama wanted the Americans to come home, and Maliki didn\u2019t particularly want them to stay.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I wonder how this would have worked.\u00a0 Would a few hundred privates do it?\u00a0 Maybe sergeants? Or how about colonels?\u00a0 I\u00a0 know, a few hundred generals.\u00a0Is a Maliki confidant a good source to explain how a few hundred American soldiers in non-combat roles would have been enough to prevent Maliki from giving into his worst instincts? Is this healthy skepticism on my part, or am I just unwilling to put the blame on President Obama?<\/p>\n<p>If an existential threat to Maliki and the Shia led Iraqi government isn&#8217;t enough to change Maliki&#8217;s behavior, would a few hundred soldiers have been able to do it?<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to Nadeem Kalil for <a title=\"Nadeem's Facebook post\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nadeem.kalil\/posts\/10152604721682189\/\" target=\"_blank\">posting this on his facebook wall<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New Yorker has the article In Extremists\u2019 Iraq Rise, America\u2019s Legacy. Today, many Iraqis, including some close to Maliki, say that a small force of American soldiers\u2014working in non-combat roles\u2014would have provided a crucial stabilizing factor that is now missing from Iraq. Sami al-Askari, a Maliki confidant, told me for my article this spring, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17477"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17482,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17477\/revisions\/17482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}