RUSH: “Las Vegas — In a closed-door meeting with Jewish Donors Saturday night, former President George W. Bush delivered his harshest public criticisms to date against [Barack Hussein O] 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.” You know, this is the first time Bush has said anything, and the Drive-By Media is outraged! I mean, it’s laughable. This is a Doomberg story.
“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.” This is not an editorial. It’s supposed to be a news story. But it concludes with, Bush “also revealed that he takes little responsibility for the policies that he put in place that contributed to the current state of affairs.”
You know, we really do live in two different universes.
If anybody’s policies are destroying success in the Middle East, it’s this administration’s! Bush’s policies are gone. They’ve been overridden. They have been nullified and negated. This is not a full-throated defense of them. Don’t misunderstand. But this is just classic. Bush has been among the politest of former presidents. It didn’t take Bill Clinton but a couple of days to start weighing in on George W. Bush.
And after those couple of days, it seemed like every week or month Bill Clinton or Algore or somebody was overseas trashing Bush, trashing the war in Iraq, trashing the United States. It was de rigeur! It was every day, it seemed. There was no respect shown in anywhere near the level of respect that George W. Bush has shown. And this was not even in public. I mean, it was a fundraiser with donors. It was at the Venetian, which is Sheldon Adelson’s property.
Oh, and they had to get that in. Sheldon Adelson, and the Koch brothers, and all the rest of these Republican donors. They’re all guilty of something, being Republicans. And Bloomberg called what Bush did “bashing.” I think calling Obama “naive” is being far too generous. George W. Bush says that our policies in the Middle East and our dealing with Iran are naive? (chuckles) Bloomberg calls that bashing.
“One attendee at the Republican Jewish Coalition,” that’s the title of the group, “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 didnÂ’t want to do. He then proceeded to explain why Obama, in his view, was placing the US in ‘retreat’ around the world.
“He also said Obama was misreading IranÂ’s intentions while relaxing sanctions on Tehran too easily.” How can anybody see it otherwise? This isn’t even bashing. This is just correct observation and commentary. “Bush said that ObamaÂ’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. ThatÂ’s how Americans should view the deal.’ Bush then went into a detailed criticism of ObamaÂ’s policies in fighting the Islamic State and dealing with the chaos in Iraq. On ObamaÂ’s decision to withdraw all US troops in Iraq at the end of 2011, he quoted Senator Lindsey Graham calling it a ‘strategic blunder.’ Bush signed an agreement…” Oh, this is pretty telling, too.
“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 US forces there past 2011. The Obama administration tried and failed to negotiate such an agreement.” That’s a blatant lie. That is just an out-and-out lie! The Obama administration did not try to get such an agreement. They did not want to stay! The Iraqis wanted our troops to remain. They offered a very feasible deal. Status of forces.
The argument was, as it always is in these things, we did not want our troops subject to war crimes charges and trials as a result of any action they might be involved in in Iraq post-American departure. The Iraqis, at first, hedged on that, but then ultimately came through and granted it. Obama’s all running around saying the Iraqis are intransigent on it and they will not concede and will not grant it, and Obama said, “I’ll not subject our troops to that circumstance,” and it just is an out-and-out lie.
According to even the New York Times, the Obama administration was offered exactly the same agreement in 2011 that they’ve accepted now. They have finally accepted it, but they were offered it in 2011, and turned it down. So this story absolutely gets that wrong. “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. …
“Obama promised to degrade and destroy Islamic State’s forces but then didnÂ’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.'” So you see, he “indirectly touted his own decision,” but Bloomberg thinks that every Bush policy was an abject failure and that Bush didn’t have the guts to admit that.
Let’s not forget, folks, that Obama and Joe Biden — hell, half the Democrat Party — made fun of and mocked the surge during the 2007 and 2008 campaign. They said it wouldn’t work. Dingy Harry’s out there, “This war is lost!” Petraeus is called up to explain the surge on Capitol Hill, and everybody from Hillary to Dingy Harry basically accused him of lying before he’s even testified. All the while, see, Obama, had a plan.
Yeeeees, the brilliant young president had a plan. We were gonna bug out of the Middle East. We’re gonna let Iran and Russia have it. That’s what the plan was. That’s what Obama’s plan was. We had no business being there. “It’s none of our concern! Especially if it’s telling Iran they can’t have nukes. It’s none of our business. What if somebody had told us we couldn’t have nukes?” You know the drill. The only reason that all of that hasn’t happened, is ISIS.
ISIS gummed up Obama’s plan.
If ISIS hadn’t come along, believe me, the Middle East would look very differently today, and we wouldn’t be there. I realize some people think that’s good. You know, I run into people now and then. Like the avowed socialist that I referenced on the golf course about a month ago, who said to me (impression), “But Rush, don’t you think that it’s an altogether better deal just to get out of there and let those people just have at each other, and if the wipe each other out, that’s fine and dandy!
“But what are we doing there? We have no business being there, and if they want to fight among themselves, then so be it! What’s wrong with that?” So there are a lot of people who think it’s a perfectly good plan just to get out of there. But that ignores the role of the United States in the world, and if you ignore the role of the United States in the world, it means you don’t really have a concept of the importance of the United States, nor do you understand why the US is important. That, to me, is tragic. But, education combined with the media leads to a lot of Americans’ minds literally being polluted.
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