Iraq Lost Iraq

Some food for thought, from DrewM., at AoSHQ, "America Isn't 'Losing' Iraq, Iraq Is":

Obama won the 2008 election in no small part because he promised to get the US out of Iraq. John McCain lost in no small part because he famously argued we should stay "100 years" if that's what it took. The American people made their choice. To now say that having won on getting out of Iraq Obama should have instead turned around and adopted McCain's losing policy idea is absurd.

This does not absolve Obama from his negligent inaction in the face of the imminent threat presented by the still growing ISIS invasion. That's entirely on Obama and his band of national security incompetents. But the great "loss of Iraq"? That's on the Iraqis. They were given a chance to build a decent country after Saddam's removal and they squandered it.

I think it's a little more complicated (Obama "turned around" on a lot of things in national security since 2008, for example), but the bottom line on ISIS is correct.