IRAQ GONE? – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  Is Iraq still a country?  Increasingly, the answer appears to be "no."  You can't blame it all on Field Marshal Obama, but his reckless childlike pullout from Iraq didn't help.  From the Washington Examiner: 

At a hearing Wednesday focused on the strategy for Iraq, the Pentagon conceded that the hope for a multi-sectarian, unified Iraq is becoming a less likely outcome. More likely, they said, is a three-way split of the country.

"Iraq is fractured," said House Armed Services Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. "You can make a pretty powerful argument, in fact, that Iraq is no more."

Smith said that while new Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has pledged support for a multi-sectarian Iraq, the lower-ranking Shiite members who fill out the rest of the government are not committed to that goal. That makes it likely that no matter how many additional U.S. forces are added to recruit Sunnis into the fight, it won't stick.

"Does [Abadi's] writ run through Iraq?" Defense Secretary Ashton Carter responded. "That's what we are waiting to see."

"How do we offer the Sunnis, you know, a reasonable place to be if they don't have some support from Baghdad?" Smith asked. "I think we need to start thinking about it."

Carter said the Defense Department does consider a future that involves three Iraqs, not one. The nation could be split into a Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite territory if Iraq's central government cannot convince Sunnis and Kurds they will be an inclusive and protected part of a unified Iraq.

COMMENT:  Then why are we putting more military assistance personnel into Iraq?  I think that's a question that Congress should pursue vigorously.  There appears to be no real strategy, a function of a disengaged, uninvolved president.

We do not seem to have much real influence in the Mideast.  This may well be Obama's real legacy.

June 18, 2015