Isn't that what brought the wall down?

"The second the US soldiers left the stage was set for a civil war conflict"

Obama wanted out. He announced his desire and his time line.

Intransigence from Maliki is simply cover for Obama. He can, like the coward he is, lay off the blame for the disastrous sequelae of his choices on others.

Iraq was a much better place at the end of Bush's tenure. It's a disaster now.

I wonder how many Americans like it that thousands of soldiers are dead and wounded for NOTHING?

If Dear President was more of a leader than a poser, he would have found a way to forge a Status of Forces agreement.

I'm sick to death of how so many poo-poo Bush's efforts to get a multi-national buy-in for his actions...but when our President flips off other countries because he's not "interested"..(read "Ukraine", "Iraq")...then that's just peachy. Never mind that Obama isn't a war-monger, he can't even keep the peace when it's handed to him...

Eventually wars are going to be run like they used to be-winner take all.

Until then we are going to do it like we have for the last 60 years and try to make a silk purse from a sows ear.

I would say the policy for the last sixty years has been largely ineffective.

They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace without victory.

Woodrow Wilson

First World War.com - Primary Documents - Peace Without Victory, 22 January 1917

Here is a video of some of the empires that have controlled this area over time:

Imperial History of the Middle East

Notice that the modern borders have very little connection to any historic polities. These borders are artifacts of British and French imperialism, they have no meaning to the people who live within them, and they are going to be redrawn. We have to accept that.

WW

Really? You blame Obama for this debacle? I can barely stand the man myself but to place this disaster at his feet and then let Bush off the hook is far fetched at best.

When viewed in the same light as the Middle East...yes.

I should have been more specific...meaning Vietnam.


atp

In 2009, we had "won", Iraq was relatively stable, and it could have been kept stable and relatively free, had we maintained a presence. It would not have involved anywhere near the costs in blood and treasure that it would require now to accomplish this under the present circumstances.

At the end of the day, you can reduce all of Obama's cascade of failings to the relatively simple fact that the world and the people in it just do not work and act they way he thinks that they do. This appears to be partially due to his marination in insipid liberationist ideology and partly due to the fact that he has been ushered from station to station in life without actually having to achieve anything,

Good leadership would be nice, but the last sixty years has shown us that most are more than willing to double down on losing bets until there is nothing left to bet with.

The real problem is that there is never an accounting involving performance or cost, there is no yardstick and no penalty for abject failure.

Before you all break out the tinfoil, try to imagine exactly what we hoped to gain in the first place. What are the real motives, what are the goals, how do we measure performance?

Again, to blame Obama for all our woes in Iraq and elsewhere is not factually or historically correct in any context. The man has screwed up just as much as the gentlemen who came before him.