shiite, had mounted a crackdown against sunni muslims throughout the country. as a result, many of them had turned in desperation and defiance to isis, which is hard-line sunni and deeply anti-shiite. allahu akbar. allahu akbar! meanwhile, another crucial decision faced the president w handle the growing crisis in neighboring syria. where jihadis were showing up to battle the regime of bashar al assad. we had reports coming from iraq that some of the fighters in al qaeda in iraq had moved to syria. robert ford, then the u.s. ambassador to syria, witnessed the turmoil firsthand. two car bombings blamed on
continued. and extremists gained the upper hand. allahu akbar. when you have these ungoverned spaces, that s exactly where extremists like to go to set up. they can plan. they can organize. they can recruit. they can do training. that s what they need. in 2013 isis took over raqqah, a major city in syria. then they marched into iraq, capturing vast swaths of territory. they had effectively creed their own nation. an iamic state. over the last two years isis has been badly squeezed. but the group could still strike anytime in the middle east, europe or america. and syria is still in chaos.
december 14th, 2011 was a great day for barack obama. hello, ft. bragg. it was the day he proudly announced that the troops were home from iraq. welcome home. a campaign promise fulfilled. just in time for his re-election bid. but had the president taken his victory lap too early? three years later, chaos had descended on iraq. cities that americans had bled for. mosul. isis now controls western iraq s mos ramadi. fallujah. had been lost again to a deadly new terror group, isis. let me ask you if it s possible in your position to be completely honest and say the rise of the islamic state surprised you. it took you by surprise.
we send 23-year-olds, and they lose limbs. and some don t come back. obama also wanted to apply that logic in afghanistan. fire! his generals wanted a large new surge of troops. but he insisted on something smaller. he took on this idea that the commander in chief is not the commander in chief. that somehow the commander on the ground should be the person who gets everything he needs as determined by him. and he demanded a deadline. a time frame. for when the troops wou come home. our troop commitment in afghanistan cannot be open-ended. consider this. in january 2009, there were 175,000 troops in afghanistan and iraq. as of december 2016, there were around 15,000. but barack obama was no peacenik.
their man, making history for them and the president. on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al qaeda s terror, justice has been done. it was the high point of barack obama s presidency. usa! usa! but it proved to be a temporary high. my home sweet home three years later, the united states watched as a new terror group, more brutal, more radical, and more effective than al qaeda swept through syria and iraq. capturing major cities, enslaving local populations, attracting thousands of followers. any attempt by you, obama. and beheading americans. will result in the bloodshed