NEW HAMPSHIRE — “When we pull back, voids are filled,” Jeb Bush said Wednesday night to explain the Islamic State’s rise. This line basically pins the Islamic State’s strength on President Obama’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The critique could also apply to Obama’s drive-by war in Libya, where the dedication to “cabin[ing] our commitment” and avoiding “boots on the ground,” probably facilitated the deadly attacks in Benghazi as well as the Islamic State’s strength there.
But if we’re talking about the Islamic State thriving in voids, it seems relevant to discuss the original decision — by Obama in the case of Iraq and George W. Bush in the case of Iraq. Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul made that point in a September debate:
Sometimes both sides of the civil war are evil, and sometimes intervention sometimes makes us less safe. This is real debate we have to have in the Middle East.
Every time we have toppled a secular dictator, we have gotten chaos, the rise of radical Islam, and we’re more at risk. So, I think we need to think before we act, and know most interventions, if not a lot of them in the Middle East, have actually backfired on us.
So, if Jeb is pointing to voids in Iraq to explain the Islamic State’s rise there, is he indicting his brother’s Iraq War? At the state capitol in Concord, I asked that: Did the regime changes in Iraq and Libya contribute to the Islamic State?
“The void was created when we did not maintain adequate forces,” Bush said, not directly addressing regime change. Another reporter asked a follow-up: Is the U.S. better off with the Islamic State in Iraq or Saddam Hussein?
“Neither,” Jeb said. Then he explicitly refused to talk about his brother’s Iraq war: “We could have a history lesson if you like,” he said, slightly peeved. Instead, he said he wanted to talk about what he would do when he took office “in 2017.” Of course, Jeb’s “When we pull back, voids are filled,” was a history lesson about Obama’s foreign policy. But if those history lessons go back to the last Bush presidency, Jeb is uneasy with them.
The next set of questions to ask Jeb Bush: So how long should U.S. troops have stayed in Iraq? Or would terrorists have filled the void whenever we withdrew? If indefinite, multi-decade occupations would be required after toppling Saddam, does that tell us anything about the wisdom of the Iraq War?
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
