I Shall Return : King Barack's Iraq "Viet Nam"

Michael Ramirez: Behind the Barack MacArthur 'I Shall Return....' Cartoon

 BY MICHAEL RAMIREZ

06/16/2015 04:31 PM ET 

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President Obama grabbed defeat out of the jaws of victory when he prematurely and unilaterally withdrew U.S. forces out of Iraq on an artificial timetable conceived only for shortsighted, narcissistic and overtly political reasons.

The disastrous results of this reckless and impulsive policy were foreseen. Everyone had warned the president this would be the case, yet the president ignored them all. The collapse of Iraq was entirely predictable.

Now, the president is engaging the Islamic State without fully engaging the Islamic State. Limited sorties coupled with onerous rules of engagement and a limited number of boots on the ground make target spotting and intelligence collection nearly impossible. The results are entirely predictable.

Bold action is required but feckless policy is being delivered.

The truth is, the longer you wait, the more troops you will have to commit in the future. The political micromanagement of this War on Terror and Obama's incrementalism define the president's strategy. It is about politics, not victory.

The victory in Iraq has been squandered and transformed by bad policy into Obama's Vietnam.

The region is immersed in chaos. Radical Islam has captured more territory than ever before. Iranian hegemony and its tentacles of influence cover the rest. America's allies are surrounded and America is no longer considered a reliable partner.

We have emboldened our enemies and alienated our friends.

The latest news is that ISIS has collected enough nuclear material for a dirty bomb and Iran has collected enough enriched nuclear material for a weapon.

America is in jeopardy.

Remember that 9/11 occurred because of 19 adequately funded terrorists with foreign passports. Now think about 50,000 well-funded terrorists with European and American passports . . . or an Iranian nuclear weapon.

The outcome is entirely predictable.

Editor's note: This is part of an occasional series by IBD's two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez in which he explains the thinking behind his latest political cartoon.

Follow Michael Ramirez on Twitter @Ramireztoons.

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