Mattis exposes the incompetence of Obama and Biden in fighting ISIS and Islamic terrorism

Becket Adams:

Democratic lawmakers and their allies in the press are getting more than they bargained for this week with the release of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ memoir, Call Sign Chaos.

White House critics have salivated for weeks over the possibility that the book would be a White House tell-all, overflowing with delicious gossip about President Trump and his inner circle. The book provides no such juicy tidbits for the #Resistance, according to the Washington Examiner’s Kelly Jane Torrance.

The memoir does, however, include an awfully unflattering glimpse into Obama-era foreign policy and the former president's strategy (or the lack thereof) for defeating the Islamic State.

Those who still adore former President Barack Obama will likely consider Mattis’ memoir a deeply unwelcome surprise. And those who have pinned their hopes of recapturing the White House on former Vice President Joe Biden, well, they are not going to like the book at all.

In 2011, Mattis writes, the White House's foreign policy eggheads roundly ignored his assessment that a sudden withdrawal from Iraq would produce disastrous results. Biden, who boasts often of his supposed foreign policy chops, was one of the key players who dismissed Mattis’ prescient warnings.

The former Secretary of Defense says of Biden (via Torrance):

“I found him an admirable and amiable man. But he was past the point where he was willing to entertain a ‘good idea.’ He didn’t want to hear more; he wanted our forces out of Iraq. Whatever path led there fastest, he favored,” Mattis writes. “He exuded the confidence of a man whose mind was made up, perhaps even indifferent to considering the consequences were he judging the situation incorrectly.”

Biden reassured Mattis that Maliki wouldn’t eject all American troops from the country.

“Maliki wants us to stick around, because he does not see a future in Iraq otherwise,” Biden said. “I’ll bet you my vice presidency.”

Mattis doesn’t say whether he tried to collect on that bet. As he writes, “In October 2011, Prime Minister Maliki and President Obama agreed that all U.S. forces would leave at the end of the year.”

Mattis’ warnings proved prescient, as Maliki, free of American influence, went after Sunni politicians and districts, alienating a third of the country. “Iraq slipped back into escalating violence. It was like watching a car wreck in slow motion,” Mattis writes. A Sunni revolt and a weak Iraqi Army allowed al Qaeda-aligned terrorists to return in 2014, calling themselves the Islamic State.
Then there is the former Secretary of Defense’s recollection of working with Obama himself. Unlike Mattis’ generally friendly assessment of Biden, the memoir has no similarly kind words for the former president. The way Mattis tells it, Obama is personally responsible for the violence, chaos, destruction, raping, and pillaging that occurred in Iraq after the U.S.’ abrupt withdrawal. The way Mattis tells it, the former president is a man consumed entirely by arrogance and pride, whose stubborn refusal to listen to those who understood the situation on the ground in Iraq doomed thousands of civilians to die.
...

There is more.

Mattis is right about both Obama and Biden.  Their strategic blunders in Iraq, Syria, and Libya cost thousands of lives and led to rape and pillaging by ISIS.   BTW, After Trump appointed Mattis as Secretary of Defense and unleashed the US military The ISIS caliphate was destroyed.  The media never held Obama accountable for his screw-ups and hoped Mattis would be critical of Trump.  Mattis proved to honest to accommodate their Trump hatred.