When not in front of a Fox News camera, no one wants the United States military to go back into Iraq. That’s why Obama must consult with the craziest of the Republicans about what the US should about Iraq as it pushes itself into a civil war.
We all know sending combat troops into Iraq again won’t help. Time and time again, the United States has played twister with the Middle East, and it doesn’t work. These are religion-based conflicts, some tribal, that go back sometimes thousands of years. A fancy airplane and an 18-year old American kid from Kentucky won’t fix those problems. They never have and they never will. The Sunni and Shiite have to decide peace for themselves. There will never be peace unless they decide it. It can’t be forced by a third part. So help those people who wish to escape the insanity with humanitarian means, but no outside military will ever solve a religious war. We know this. We all know this.
Why President Obama Needs to Consult with Republicans In Congress About Iraq 3.0
So, why should President Obama meet with Republicans about Iraq? Because it’s the only way to get them to shut up about sending the military back in again. American politics in the Obama Era is nothing more than a shouting match. The intent of GOP political strategy is to not get anything done. John McCain’s sole purpose is Washington is to shout at television cameras about how wrong Obama is about everything from Syria to the color of socks he’s wearing that day (even if those socks are a father’s day gift – McCain hold nothing back).
Mr President: invite them all to the White House. You must. Get everyone into a room with reporters (no live cameras, though, John McCain can’t help himself if there’s a camera in the room). Talk it out with the republican leaderships in Congress who make a living telling the world you’re wrong. Get McCain, Cruz, McConnell, Boehner, Graham – get ’em all in the White House. You don’t have to talk tactics or anything that would be classified, just force republican flamethrowers in a position where they are advising the Commander in Chief on the record for the entire country to read and hear. You need to put all of them in the room and on the record so the entire country can hear what they are proposing to the Commander in Chief, not just what they’re shouting at Fox News cameras. Make them accountable, Mr. President. Make them be serious. Do not act without Congress – force them to work with you by putting them in the room, then let’s see what happens. They’ll either turn into responsible adults and be serious, or they’ll say things that will make the country run away in fear (which, in turn, will help democrats in the 2014 mid-terms, so you have little to lose in this venture).
The Republican party shouts daily about how they are not consulted by President Obama – so consult with Congress – but be on the record where the public can see. America is tired of war in Iraq. We don’t want to go back into Iraq, but you need everyday citizens to have your back: show them why the hawks who love war are wrong by putting them on the stage. We don’t want to watch our own citizens die for years on end just to see yet another army drop its weapons and run away the first time they’re challenged. Get the GOP war hawks on the record inside the White House saying they want to take America back to war, and “Real Americans” won’t stand for it.
The problem now is that for the depressingly low percentage of Americans who actually pay attention to the news, a politician shouting a broad-stroke policy belief into a camera means absolutely nothing. We all know it’s chest puffing and fund raising. What they say during cable news interviews has nothing to do with what they actually do in back rooms. So, Mr. President: put them into the back room and make them put it on the record. I’m very curious to see how chest-pumping yee-haw cowboy they are when they’re forced to talk about it seriously, where it matters, instead of just on the airwaves for their donors to hear.
Put the GOP in the room, Mr. President. It’s the only way to shut them up.
