Despite all that pesky evidence to the contrary, Donald Trump still insists that he was against the war in Iraq before it even started—a part of his Hillary was wrong, but I’m never, ever wrong campaign rhetoric. Trump has also complained that he warned against leaving Iraq, but as it turns out, the truth is he wanted to leave much sooner.
Since the campaign began, Trump has been accusing President Obama and Hillary Clinton of getting out of Iraq too quickly, leaving an opening for the rise of groups like ISIS. Trump went so far as to call the president the founder of ISIS.
"No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS," Trump said. "I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton."
Trump’s claims that Hillary had a hand in creating an ISIS-friendly vacuum turned up in all three debates. But, it looks like the person in the biggest hurry to leave Iraq in the dust was actually Donald Trump.
… as late as August 2011, Trump took issue with Obama for not withdrawing troops quickly enough. ...
"Well, I think he could have gotten out a long time ago," Trump said.
Trump’s complaint at the time wasn’t that we didn’t leave immediately—and take the oil with us.
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Far from calling the rise of the Islamic State, Trump confidently predicted that another power would immediately move in.
"These wars are a disaster. Iraq is going to be taken over by Iran the minute we leave.”
But that threat didn’t keep Trump from championing an immediate Irexit. For all Trump’s bluster about how pulling troops from Iraq led to the rise of ISIS, Trump never made any predictions along those lines and constantly insisted that we should just walk away.
Trump passionately argued for the withdrawal of all troops from Iraq for years, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer in 2007 that the US should "declare victory and leave." In 2008, he told British GQ "I'd get out of Iraq right now."
Donald Trump then? Get out now! Donald Trump now? We shouldn’t have left!
In truth, President Obama’s structured withdrawal followed the letter of a strategic agreement entered into by the United States and the new government of Iraq under the administration of George W. Bush. Failing to do so would have shown that the United States didn’t recognize the new government and couldn’t be trusted to abide by treaties … though neither of these issues has been a concern of Trump, who has often declared himself ready to tear up international agreements.
The strangest part of Trump’s 2011 claims was that he was even then making a impossible demand he’s still harping on today.
“[Iran is] going to take the second largest oil reserves in the world — which by the way we should have taken.” ...
At times in 2011 and during the 2016 presidential election, Trump has said the US should have taken Iraq's oil before leaving.
Donald Trump doesn’t seem to understand that Iraq’s oil is not sitting in a warehouse, neatly arranged in big yellow drums, ready to be put on trucks and hauled away. Shockingly, the oil is … in the ground. It has to be pumped out, at a rate far less than infinite, and it has to be transported away from the producing regions and sent by tanker or pipeline.
Trump also doesn’t seem to understand that taking over a nation by force and making off with its natural resources is a war crime, something every civilized nation has accepted since 1949.
For both practical and political reasons, you can’t steal someone’s oil.
You especially can’t take the oil and run. To take Iraq’s oil would mean positioning US forces to control and protect production and transportation facilities more or less forever. The idea that the US “should have taken” Iraqi oil at the same time they “declare victory and leave” is nonsensical. Ridiculously impractical. Highly illegal and immoral.
But then, so is Donald Trump.