That and the "State Department had to walk back" various Kerry statements. The implication being that he tends to wander off the reservation when he is actually a very steady, very careful diplomat. ( Part of the reason they have always faulted him with being verbose is he tries to condition statements to make them precise and accurate.)
The strange thing is that it is VERY clear that the President has put him out front on a huge number of serious foreign policies - far more than HRC and even more than Biden.
The strange thing on them doing it on this story is that it is so dramatic and so fast moving that the real story would be exciting (though terrifying) to try to explain. This is NOT where we were in 2006, when the Iraqis settling their differences and working to create a government they could live with. They now have had Maliki - who Bush and his people essentially chose - who has been a very sectarian leader.
Just today, Iraq thanked Syria for bombing the rebels -- and they already are working with Iran. It almost seems as though Maliki sees his best path as aligning with the Shiites. The question is whether he can form a government that can do that. If they go that way -- we may have very limited options. The fact that there were reports today that the Sunnis who led the Sunni awakening do not want to fight ISIS with the US is also depressing. It gives us even LESS reason to want to help anyone in Iraq.
With all that going on -- they chose to make the story:
- The Obama/Kerry policy -- that each have articulated very clearly multiple times -- is not clear. Maybe it is because the policy is NOT what they thought it would be and it respects that we are not running the entire world.
- Many arguments on whether they should have left troops - and not just the 3,000 Obama spoke of but 20,000. (Their strange claim is that with us there, Maliki would not have thrown out Sunni generals etc. -- However, that would suggest that we would be controlling their government. ie occupation, which the troops left behind were NOT suppose to be.)
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