The President Who Lost Iraq -- Peter Wehner, Commentary
The New York Times reports that the United States is quietly rushing dozens of Hellfire missiles and low-tech surveillance drones to Iraq “to help government forces combat an explosion of violence by a Qaeda-backed insurgency that is gaining territory in both western Iraq and neighboring Syria.”
This happens in the context of the deaths of more than 8,000 Iraqis in 2013, the highest level of violence since 2008. The Times’s Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt write, “Al Qaeda’s regional affiliate, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has become a potent force in northern and western Iraq… The surge in violence stands in sharp contrast to earlier assurances from senior Obama administration officials that Iraq was on the right path, despite the failure of American and Iraqi officials in 2011 to negotiate an agreement for a limited number of United States forces to remain in Iraq.”
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My Comment: Iraq has a long history of sectarian violence .... a residual US presence instead of a full withdrawal would probably not have made a difference in stemming the violence that is now gripping Iraq. My prediction ... this will be one of those discussion points that future historians will prbably debate and argue about for decades.
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